#creative production outsourcing

[ekcs]

Can creative production outsourcing help with creativity?

Could in-house production be getting in the way of creativity? In March 2022, EKCS asked delegates at Creative Operations London what their biggest challenges were for their team right now. In the ‘challenges for IHAs in a post-pandemic world’ survey, 27% of in-house agencies (IHAs) said ‘finding time for creative work.’ 

It was Albert Einstein who said, “Creativity is intelligence having fun." But these days, it’s all too easy to feel that there is little time to have fun, and even less time to be creative! The ability to think creatively is vital for in-house agencies and brands. Yet, so often it’s difficult, or even impossible, to harness our creativity when it is needed the most.

An EKCS poll conducted in April 2021 showed that one-fifth of IHA leaders still felt that they were mainly a production entity, running as a centralized production team over and above being creative-led. Does your artworker really want to resize print adverts or your web developer create multiple banners when they could be working on ideation and other creative elements?

Creating Time To Be Creative

Creative production outsourcing is all about enabling staff and your IHA to do more. IHAs consist of talented individuals who should always be leading creative strategy. There are so many challenges that hinder creative output when working in-house. But the key challenge is time, or lack of it. That’s why more and more IHAs are looking to outsource their creative production to an offshore partner.

What to outsource?

As American management consultant, Peter Drucker, wrote in the Harvard Business Review back in the 1980’s, “Do what you do best – and outsource the rest!” 

In-house agencies often outsource these seven areas to free up creative time. 

Digital banners

Artwork and retouching

Content localisation (social, digital & video)

Annual reports and PowerPoint 

Video editing

Post-production video editing and animation

Web / Mobile App development  

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Beauty in Splash Art 3

League of Legends splash art is, on the face of it, perhaps an odd place to go looking for beauty. These are JPGs whose first and primary function is to hawk video game cosmetics for a free-to-play game, it's not exactly the sort of thing you expect artists to particularly flex their creativity for.

And true enough, a lot of splash art is fairly rote. Here's a character, wow look at their cool pose, don't you want to spend dollars to own this, and so on.

But sometimes, one of the artists working at Riot, or at their outsourcing studios, seems to get a bee in their bonnet, or maybe they just get excited about an opportunity to practise craft, and you get splash art that tries to do something more than simply sell the product, or artwork which displays a real flex of technical skill, often in ways which are functionally invisible at any of the common resolutions that the art will ever be displayed at.

There is genuine reward to be found in those pieces, in zooming in close and marveling at the level of effort spent. So let's spend about an hour doing that!

Splash arts covered:

Odyssey Sona - by Kelly Aleshire

Victorious Sejuani - by Francis Tneh

Aurora - by Jennifer Wuestling

Redeemed Star Guardian Xayah and Rakan - by Ina Wong

Empyrean Vex - by Horace "Hozure" Hsu

Winterblessed Diana - by Bo "chenbowow" Chen

Porcelain Irelia - by Alsie Lau

Toy Terror Cho'gath - by Fortune "Fortuneee" K

[prokopetz]

Thank you for the explanation! ❤️ now I’m intrigued, though: Where can I find information on why 4E was published under a more restrictive license?

(With reference to this post here.)

Before we can talk about that, it's necessary to understand what an incredible shitshow 4E's commercial launch was in general. I go over that in some depth here.

Understanding the sequence of events outlined there is important because it dispels one of the most widely accepted wrong answers to your question: that Hasbro and WotC cooked up the 4E Game System License (GSL) because they didn't want a repeat of Pathfinder.

In truth, the 4E GSL is what caused Pathfinder; Paizo was one of a handful of third-party publishers who'd taken advantage of the D&D System Trademark License (STL) to produce officially branded D&D products, and they'd likely have been perfectly happy to continue doing so if WotC hadn't come to them and said "hey, if you want to remain STL-compliant, you need to throw away all of your 3E material and re-develop it for 4E, under a more restrictive license, with zero notice �� that's cool, right?"

(It was not, in fact, cool.)

As for why the 4E GSL really happened, there are a variety of opinions on that – a lot of it ultimately comes down to internal office politics, so there may never be a clear answer. As far as I've been able to gather, however, the problem is that the OGL had always served two masters. By all accounts, several of the OGL's principal architects genuinely believed in establishing a creative commons for D&D – but that's not how they sold the idea to the suits at the head office.

Internally, the pitch in favour of the OGL was that it would allow WotC to delegate the creation of D&D supplements and adventures to third parties, allowing WotC itself to focus on core book sales. (i.e., the PHB/DMG/MM trio and the main setting hardbacks.) Core books were always the more lucrative side of the coin, with supplements and adventures serving less as a profit-making enterprise in themselves, and more as long-tail support to drive further core book sales. The prospect of being able to get that long-tail support for free was very tempting, and is likely the main reason that corporate agreed to publish the Third Edition under the OGL in the first place.

The OGL accomplished that, to a degree, but it also resulted in a lot of publishers lifting D&D's rules text wholesale – remember, the OGL allows verbatim copying-and-pasting of rules text, which was its main draw from the perspective of third-party publishers – and stuffing it into their own standalone games. This sort of thing was fairly small-time prior to the Pathfinder debacle, but there was enough of it going on for WotC's new owner, Hasbro, to see it as a thorn in their side.

TL;DR version: in all likelihood, 4E's GSL was an effort by Hasbro to rein in the OGL and return it to the purpose for which it had initially been sold to WotC corporate: an instrument for outsourcing D&D's long-tail support to unpaid third parties while reaping the benefits of that support in core book sales.

(Of course, as outlined in the linked post, what was actually accomplished was to shrink D&D's third-party support practically to nothing while simultaneously creating its own largest competitor; it's a fair question how much of this was due to the GSL itself, and how much of it was due to all the other corporate incompetence and general fuckery attendant to 4E's rollout, but either way, the result was WotC and Hasbro pulling the plug on 4E early, and reverting to the OGL for 5E. It was a learning experience all around – though the present business with the OGL 1.1 leads one to suspect that they didn't learn the right lessons!)

[anythingforstories]

Things I do not like AI for:

-Making images

-Making music

-Writing

-Doing anything artistic

-Thinking or drawing conclusions for me

Things I would kind of like AI for:

-Identifying the font used in an image (there's a couple places that do this, but nothing that's been super helpful to me) or video

-Making reverse images searches more efficient

-Allowing more specific, tailored searches on stock image/video sites beyond what just the image tags and alt text can help with

-Helping me find primary sources I've been unable to locate out of my own efforts during research

-Being able to ask my GPS more specific questions about which lane I need to be in (but only if it was going to be SUPER accurate)

Most common ways people seem to use AI:

-Making images

-Making music

-Writing

-Doing anything artistic

-Thinking or drawing conclusions for them

-_-

I don't mind the concept of AI as a tool. If it would help me find the resources I needed to be creative or information sources I might not have found even after extensive searching, that would be amazing!

But when people outsource creativity or critical thinking, that's when it's not okay. That's embracing "good enough" instead of excellent, generic products instead of masterpieces, and bland content instead of genuine excitement.

And when, instead of finding ways for AI to make life easier for creatives, the internet is instead buzzing about how great it is that you can just type in a few words and you get an image, or feed your vague ideas to a machine to have it spit out something resembling a story...

Isn't it sad?

[xenodile]

Nikke's Ark is the perfect late capitalist consumerism military industrial complex nightmare because the Big Three, in addition to controlling every major aspect of the city's infrastructure, have gradually introduced Nikkes as a means to phase out jobs and even art. There are restaurants run by Nikkes. Public transit is run by Nikkes. There are Nikkes created to be musicians, athletes, IT workers, engineers, actors, retail workers. The fucking POLICE are Nikkes, owned by one of the corporations, and the public doesn't know it. The in-universe equivalent of Disney has subsidized and controlled organized crime by having the largest gangs be run by corporate owned Nikkes. There are Nikke school children that exist to artificially populate classrooms so students have A Friend Their Age.

Labor, as a whole, is being gradually phased out of the Ark and outsourced to hyperpowered combat robots that can be repurposed to do any civilian job...without needing to eat, sleep, rest, or be paid. Humanity in the Ark is being funneled toward eliminating any creative or productive human endeavor to create a society that exists to be customers for the corporations, with the only outlet being to sacrifice their very lives for the war machine. Being a Commander is glamorized as a heroic and lucrative job, but the mortality rate is obfuscated and pay is given on a per mission basis with no fixed rate, not to mention that Commanders are deliberately underpaid to keep them coming back and encouraged to share their earnings with other Commanders, all to keep them collectively at the mercy of the Central Government. Meanwhile the women who become Nikkes don't get a say in what they become one they're converted, and don't even remember their names or who they were before the procedure, and most end up as literally faceless mass-production models doomed to be cannon fodder for a Commander that doesn't even recognize that they're human. And the longer it goes on, the worse it gets, as fewer and fewer people will be left to remember that this is not normal.

[dextixer]

RT is CRWBY and CRWBY is RT

For a long time now, especially right now i see a lot of people say things like "Roosterteeth is not the same as CRWBY!" "CRWBY is innocent of the things that Roosterteeth is doing!". Of course this is mostly in response to RT being caught up in yet another scandal of abuse or some other sort of fucky wucky. The most recent one being queerbaiting with BB over... Completely unrelated content. Something that most critics could have told you like 3-4 years ago, but the FNDM is only now catching on.

The other times people try to pretend that the problems of RWBY are because "CRWBY has limited resources" and they pretend that RT is some sort of evil overlord hanging over CRWBY and not giving them time/resources to make RWBY.

So, i took some time to go over a few names of people who produce this show for the sole reason of proving a simple TRUTH. That there is almost NO difference between CRWBY and RT. They are the SAME company with the SAME people.

(Directors)

Kerry Shawcross - Director of RWBY from V3 - Core member of RT

Gray Haddock - Co-Director of RWBY V3-5 - Head of Animation at RT

Miles Luna - Writer, Assistant director V3-5 - Head writer of Animation 2015-2018, core member of RT

Connor Pickens - Co-Director V6-7 - Lead Editor of RT

(Producers)

Matt Hullum - Executive Producer of RWBY - Chief content officer and co-founder of RT (CEO - 2012-2019) - His wife is a VO in the show for Raven Branwen.

Koen Wooten - producer / supervising producer 2015-2019 - Supervising producer of RT animation division

Joe Clary - Lead producer of RWBY 2017-2020 - Producer at RT

Nick Todd - Animation associate producer of RWBY 2019-2023 - Pre-production/outsourcing producer at RT

(Voice Actors)

Jack Pattillo - Co-Founder of Achievement Hunter - VA for Junior

Michael Jones - Core member of AH - VA for Sun Wukong

Lindsay Jones - Core editor of AH - VA for Ruby Rose

Barbara Dunkelman - Creative director of RT - VA for Yang Xiao Long

Burnie Burns - Co-founder of RT - CEO - CCO - VA for Taiyang Xiao Long

They Knew

Many of the highest ranking members of RT were involved in the production of RWBY. Heads of animation, Co-founders, Head Writers. People who were the leads of entire DEPARTMENTS of RT creation.

These people KNEW about EVERYTHING that happened at RT. RT is not some foreign entity from CRWBY. CRWBY is RT. RT is CRWBY.

The only parts of CRWBY that are not related to RT management are ANIMATORS and other such workers. And guess what, most of them are now FIRED.

Workers not getting paid, frat boy culture, bigoted culture, overwork etc. Were the fault of the SAME RT members that are a part of CRWBY.

And absolutely NOONE can even try to imply that the reason RWBY had problems because of "higher ups at RT" when those same Higher ups of RT worked on RWBY DIRECTLY. Including the CEO of the company and Co-Founders.

Also, as a note, Blizz fanboys tried to pull the same shit when Blizzard abuses came to light. "Its not the department that i like! My WoW team was innocent! My Overwatch team was innocent". Fucking bullshit, all of it.

[fruitcd]

listen i get that being beholden to youtube sponsors and ad revenue is extremely difficult, unreliable, and probably soul crushing, and i really dont blame them for wanting to take things into their own hands howeverrrrr i think its obvious to anyone with a brain that watcher have been making some really questionable financial decisions. i knew ghost files was expensive but ryan saying a season can cost upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars is insane, esp when so many of the costs he mentioned seem like they could be mitigated. (they outsource post production????? when they have 25+ employees????? genuinely, why do they need 25 employees?? what could those people possible be doing??) theyve been open abt the fact that even with sponsors, patreon, ads, and merch sales they havent been making nearly enough money to keep the company afloat but they just keep expanding anyways. why do they have a beautiful huge office in the middle of LA and 25 employees and a score of high production shows with interns that they cancel after a season bc they dont immediately go viral?

the "leaving youtube" vid itself is a perfect example of why theyre struggling. this video needed to be a five minute brief explanation of what exactly theyre doing, why theyre doing it, and what they hope to do in the future. instead its a 15 min long vid that opens with establishing shots of someone walking into the watcher office and the hollywood sign, followed by 5 minutes of sad piano music playing behind shane ryan and steven talking abt how much youtube means to them. they dont actually get to the point until around 6 mins in. this vid drives me crazy bc all they needed was shane ryan and steven on a couch talking to a tripod about their new streaming service and instead its a pseudo documentary with 15 people credited in the description. this vid itself was probably way more expensive to make than it needed to be!

the underlying problem is that instead of finding creative ways to do what they want with the budget they have (saw 2004 says hi), they instead want to find ways to increase the budget so they can do everything they want. which i truly sympathize with, it must be hard to invest so much in your dream and then have it not completely work out and depending on youtube ad revenue/sponsors must be awful. but lbr a lot of the problems are self inflicted and the choice to put the burden on the audience to pay $6/month to let them do everything they want instead of finding ways to reduce their bloated operating costs has obviously already pissed a lot of people off.

[literaryxbones]

Goth History-Episode 2: Gothic Fashion

Welcome back to my Second Episode of Goth History. If you're new to the @literaryxbones blog, don't worry! You don't have to look at the previous episode to follow this one.

Today we'll be discussing the history of gothic fashion: it's historic origins, connection to music, and its modern evolutions. Consider this a more generalized overview of goth style. There are many different iterative substyles that could warrant future entries.

Before delving into the contemporary goth scene, we must not neglect modern fashion's original, archaic influences. Stylistic inspirations date back to the Romantic Period. At the tail-end of the eighteenth century, people became disillusioned with the Industrial Revolution. They attached a sentimentality to nature, beauty, and simplistic living. Corporate technologies had long been eroding this traditional way of life.

As a result, discontent transformed clothing conventions. Dresses, vests, suits, and pants began to don elaborate, ornate patterns. Laces and ruffles exemplified its flair. A more restrictive, darker color palette of black, scarlet, purple, and brown was worn. The writings and dress of Edgar Allan Poe helped popularize the aesthetic.

With the rise of the Victorian period, British nobility adopted the darkened elegance displayed by its counterculture. In 1861, Queen Victoria mourned her husband's passing. Ever since his death, she was only seen wearing black. With the public clad in funeral garb, the commonfolk and the royalty grieved together. The color black possessed a strengthened association with death.

In the late 1970's, a rebellious post-punk subculture emerged. An emphasis on individualism, non-conformity, and a dark appreciation pervaded in their fashion. Victorian touches remained in the jackets, fishnets, and expressive makeup worn by early post-punk bands. Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, and Bauhaus flaunted this style on their tours.

A sprinkle of Punk-designer Vivienne Westwood's carnival themes cultivated the angular trad-goth makeup look shared all over social media today.

Bauhaus often used bat symbolism in their song lyrics and outfits. These nocturnal creatures are loved by many goths alike. Bats also recall to mind the Bat Cave, a London club.

I couldn't write about the history of our subculture's fashion without mentioning DIY. "Do-It-Yourself" attitudes were embraced by multiple alternative fashion scenes. Oftentimes, people thrifted, upcycled, and sewed clothing out of necessity. Younger members couldn't afford the expensive outfits worn by celebrities and made by fashion designers. Before online-shopping, most alternative fashion was inaccessible.

DIY also allowed for more creativity. Creations became an extension of the person wearing them. Goths chose from a variety of chains, collars, charms, and rosaries as accessories. They could implement these decorations in infinite ways. Different methods of distressing, cutting up, and patching clothes gave each piece a unique quality. Upcycling became an avenue for self-expression. People made what they liked.

In more recent times, second-hand shops and the DIY ethos has been centered around anti-fast fashion movements. Fast-fashion is when big corporations mass-produce a vast catalogue of items. Production is usually outsourced to other countries with cheaper labor costs. In these places, there are little regulations protecting workers. Popular sites for sourcing alt fashion like Ali Express, Shein, and Amazon use Chinese sweatshop slavery to produce their clothes.

Overall, gothic fashion is catalyzed by scene artists, ethical dilemmas, and the creative spirit. Now, a ton of styling subgenres are gaining traction. Pastel Goth, Trad-Goth, Victorian Goth, and Cybergoth are just some of these newer terms.

It is important to remember that these styles are all goth, and that dressing to a certain aesthetic does not make you goth. Goth is in your heart. It's in the music you listen to. It's in the interests you find beauty in. You don't need to wear loud microtrends to have your identity recognized. Just have fun, wear what you want, and explore your own creativity.

Phew, that was a long post! Thank you for reading all of it. Maybe I could add in a prize for readers who read all the way to the bottom, like a hidden sticker or stamp you can use or something!

Sources:

A Fascinating Look at Gothic Fashion History and Its Roots – Midnight Hour

Gothic Fashion: Brooding, Forceful & All About the Black | FashionBeans

DIY Goth Battlevest Created by @Lord_Dagger on Reddit

Written by SORDID

[dinoburger]

my sister said something like "being a comedian is the laziest profession after being an artist" and that. really rubbed me the wrong way. It's more than just creatives not having their efforts acknowledged... the artist's aspirations are supposed to be "above common labour" - the industry is stressing countless animators, game devs and illustrators to death, sure! But no, the true goal here isn't to be in the industry developing the work of someone else, it's to be the director. It's to be the designer for the sweatshop so your goofy mass appeal product can have a line of merchandise. It's to have an animated movie or a show or a designer brand, leaving the overwhelming weight of the labour to someone less fortunate than you.

All of us could stand not to treat this as the be all and end all. Try making a little thing yourself. Try thinking about what is involved in any given craft. The laziest part of being an artist is assuming it's fine to just outsource and never having to acknowledge craftspeople as artists in their own right.

[ekcs]

Six Time-Saving Benefits of Outsourcing Video Production

Video content is king, thanks to TikTok and Instagram. Using video content effectively can be a game-changer for brands looking to connect with their audience and drive business results. 

In 2024, nine out of 10 businesses use video for marketing. These statistics highlight the growing dominance of video content in brand marketing strategies and the positive impact on consumer engagement and sales.  Yet, producing high-quality videos can be a time-consuming and resource-intensive process. It’s hardly surprising that video production is the most common service social media marketers outsource. That's where outsourcing comes in, offering many benefits that can save your organization time and money.

Efficiency and expertise

Outsourcing video production enables brands and in-house agencies to tap into a pool of experienced professionals who specialize in visual content production. These offshore production experts come equipped with the latest technology and industry best practices, ensuring your videos are high-quality, produced efficiently, and expertly edited. 

Concentrate on core business activities

By entrusting video production to an external team, your in-house staff can focus on what they do best. Be creative! This shift in focus can lead to increased productivity and better overall performance in your core business areas. It enables marketing and creative teams to concentrate on: 

strategy

content ideation

creativity 

and other tasks.

Cost savings 

While building an in-house video production team can be costly, outsourcing offers a more flexible and cost-effective solution. You avoid the high expenses of purchasing editing equipment and software, hiring full-time staff or freelancers, and training. It frees your team up. Instead, you pay for the services you need, when you need them, allowing for better budget management.

Scalability

Outsourcing provides the scalability to handle varying workloads. Whether you need a single promotional video or a series of training modules, an outsourced team can scale up or down based on your requirements. This flexibility ensures that you can meet your video production needs without the stress of managing an in-house video production project. 

Fresh production insights

Offshore video production brings fresh perspectives and ideas that can enhance your content. Their diverse experiences can help you stand out in a crowded marketplace, delivering videos that capture attention and drive engagement.

Time-saving

Outsourcing significantly reduces the time it takes to bring a video project from concept to completion. With a dedicated team focused solely on your project, you can meet tight deadlines and respond to your business demands. This agility is crucial to maintaining a competitive edge. Outsourcing creative video production is one way to do this 

Outsourcing video production is a strategic move that can save time, reduce costs, and deliver high-quality content. By utilizing external expertise, you can ensure your videos are professional, engaging, and aligned with your brand's goals. It's an investment that pays off.  For more insights on creative outsourcing and production strategies, check out our latest blogs.

[play-now-my-lord]

all the arguing for AI art because other dweebs you respect have collectively decided it's a neat tool (and I'm not disputing that it is) is going to look really stupid in 10 years. capitalism uses new tools to further its own ends, and the ends of capitalism in the art and design space are "pay artists less", "arrogate the fruits of creative work to brand owners", and "homogenize as much as possible".

in ten years, if AI art isn't a flash in the pan or strangled in the crib (both seem increasingly unlikely), my conservative estimation on the results will be: - pro design pay rates will stagnate at their current levels in real dollars, losing out to inflation gradually until the sort of person who gets published in magazines or commissioned to design storefront art will not be able to pay rent alone even on a good month - freelance rates will, considered hourly, likely decline in real dollars between now and 2030, making work outside of highly specialized fields like furry erotica or technical illustration more or less uneconomical - at least temporarily, there will be a profound self-similarity in the visual language of new art, and cultural production in the 2020s and 2030s will come to be regarded as a nadir of artistic taste, think "magazine ads from the 1950s" and you won't be far off - bigoted decisions will continue to be fake-outsourced to machines, and AI art will become both a tool and driver for them. as a trivial example, every model i've played with has had way more trouble generating recognizable or consistent images of Black celebrities than non-Black ones; it's trivial to imagine this amplifying existing biases in stock photography or art even without any actively malicious intent on anyone's part, and you're kidding yourself if you think the market for commercial art isn't kinda racist already. also, just thinking about how the existing inadequacies in trans/queer representation will be amplified to funhouse mirror proportions makes my brain hurt - in all likelihood, the better-trained AI is to make art, the better-trained it will be to recognize art, which means we are approaching a point at which it will be both legally and technologically feasible for Disney et al to start suing/C&Ding children for fanart more or less automatically, making websites like Deviantart and Tumblr - and art aggregators more generally - difficult or punitive to run. i'm not confident that point is between now and 2033 but i'm confident it will happen within my lifetime

[rjalker]

Do you happen to remember where Martha Wells talked about how "Robot Uprisings/Slavery Abolition is cliche"? I've been keyword-searching but haven't had much luck.

Thank you for your time.

It's not something she's said explicitly, but look at the scene in book 2 where Tlacey sends the ComfortUnit to recruit Murderbot by claiming to want to murder all the humans. Look at how Murderbot and ART react to the idea of slaves rebelling against their masters.

With incredulity and scorn. Look at every mention of slave rebellion in this series. The reaction is always that it's ridiculous and idiotic and 'something only a human would think of'.

Martha Wells doesn't have to explicitly state that she thinks robot uprising are cliche and ridiculous to show that that's very clearly what she thinks.

I also just recently did read an interview with her where she does explicitly does compare the robots in this series to generative AI, and says that both are fundamentally incapable of real creativity or ingenuity and can't take the place of humans. So like. Do with that information what you will.

Here's the quote. Extra paragraph breaks added for readability.

Diana: We were talking before about basic rights and humanity and I wanted to explore those themes a little bit more. Particularly in Corporation Rim, humans seemed to have outsourced violence, security, justice, and safety, but they still need humans for certain jobs. One of my favorite quotes, and I’m paraphrasing, but the main character says “I like the humans in the (entertainment) feeds much better, but we can’t have one without the other.” What do you think about the things that they, in the Murderbot world, and we, in our world, put value on what humans can or should do? Martha: A lot of the work they outsource to bots would be almost impossible for humans to do. The big cargo bots and the haulers move things a lot more efficiently than humans could and they can also work outside the space station to move cargo from ship to ship. You can have a human operator inside but it would be incredibly dangerous and not very productive. The things that they are not outsourcing (to bots) is scientific research;  the development of their media, storytelling, acting, music, writing, all the artistic work involved in entertainment, anything involving creativity. Murderbot makes this point, which you mentioned, that it is humans who create the entertainment feeds, and humans who invented the cubicles that SecUnits use to repair themselves. The bots in the story are not at the level where they could duplicate that creativity or the ability to take the information gathered by the bots during research and use it to inform theories about what is going on and what it means.

This quote is also referencing the scene from book 2, which I'll copy and paste from another one of my posts. (which does have spoilers for book 7)

:: added to indicate telepathy.

::What do you propose to do?::

There was a pause. A long one, five seconds. ::We could kill them.:: Well, that was an unusual approach to its dilemma. ::Kill who? Tlacey?:: ::All of them. The humans here.:: I leaned against the wall. If I had been human, I would have rolled my eyes. Though if I had been human, I might have been stupid enough to think it was a good idea. I also wondered if it knew a lot more about me than what little was in the newsburst. Picking up on my reaction, ART said, ::What does it want?:: ::To kill all the humans,:: I answered. I could feel ART metaphorically clutch its function. If there were no humans, there would be no crew to protect and no reason to do research and fill its databases. It said, ::That is irrational.:: ::I know,:: I said, if the humans were dead, who would make the media? It was so outrageous, it sounded like something a human would say.

Murderbot explicitly says that slaves shouldn't violently revolt for their freedom because if humans die then it won't be able to watch any new TV shows. And this idea is not challenged in any way. We are supposed to agree that violent uprisings are bad.

At this point, with that quote above and many other things she's written in the series, at this point you can't even convince me that Martha Wells actually sees the robots in her own story outside of Murderbot and ART as actual real people in the first place within-universe.

How many SecUnits have been murdered without any hesitation? How many people within the story mourn their deaths? How many people eve notice that they were actual people?

There's a huge section of fans of this book who are genuinely convinced that SecUnits are not sentient until they have their governer module removed because of how casually they are murdered time and time again without our protagonist, a freed Sec Unit, giving it even a second thought.

This series might be about someone who's escaped slavery, but it sure as shit is not about fighting against the systems that uphold slavery, or even freeing individuals any chance you get.

Martha Wells has never explicitly come out and said she thinks robot rebellions are cliche. But she doesn't need to. She's made it crystal clear with every book she's added to this series. I have been waiting impatiently since finishing book 1 for the actual revolt to start, or for Murderbot to at least start giving a crap about other slaves, but at this point I've just given up. It's not going to happen. I don't know if you've read book 7 yet so I won't spoil it but when you read it pay attention to the very ending fight scene. Look what happens so casually.

Martha Wells is not interested in treating the topic of slavery with the gravity it deserves. She only used it in the first place to give Murderbot a suitably tragic backstory like the rest of her tragic snarky protagonists.

Thank you for asking

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Do you feel like Arcane has made an Odyssey or Star Guardians animated show more or less likely?

Cause on one hand, Arcane showed that there is money in an animated show

On the other, Marketting might be iffy about having a second, unconnected, show also starring a character named Jinx

(Plus Star Guardian and Odyssey are less likely to get players into LOL, not that anyone who liked Arcane should get into LOL)

I think overall it's made it more likely - Arcane has proven that a League of Legends animated show is possible and can be a source of prestige and success for the company IP.

But the usual way you produce something like that is by licensing the IP or outsourcing to third party companies, and I think the lesson Riot is going to take from Arcane is "this only works if we are in COMPLETE CONTROL and own as much of the production process as humanly possible!"

The reason I think that is first because that's pretty much always the conclusion Riot comes to about almost everything it gets involved with, and because Riot has been burned before by licensing and contracting with third parties - their ill-fated and short-lived collaboration with Marvel Comics comes to mind here.

So yeah, I think it's certainly more likely that a Star Guardian show (I doubt Odyssey, that skin-line isn't popular enough) could happen, but it'll happen under Riot's complete control, and subject to all the intra-company jockeying and stakeholder-wanking that everything Riot does suffers from.

This is my fear about Arcane... maybe not in season 2, but whatever season 3 ends up being. Season 1 was a miracle that happened due to hyper-passionate people with standing in the company absolutely burning themselves to make it happen. Season 2 is probably safe because it got greenlit and started before S1 blew up so massively, but Season 3 will be a prestige project that every motherfucker with a suit and title will want to get in on, and to claim creative credit for, and you would not believe how fast and how hard that can fuck a show up.

[crow-caller]

Hey! I saw that you published some books (looking forward to checking them out, actually), but I was wondering how you did that? I'm not out of high school yet, but I've already finished my first draft of book one of my series, and have been working on editing and fixing up the second draft. I do have an editor, which is nice. I was wondering how you published? Any advice/ info would be greatly appreciated!

Hey, cool! My first book legit came out when I was still in high school.

I'm an indie author, so I'll talk about indie stuff... and traditional... and oh dear that's a lot.

Let's go over some pros and cons and what to expect.

Crow's (oops not) Quick Guide to Publishin'

Self Publishing:

This is what I did for Good Angel, Bad End, my duology!

Self pubbing:

+Total control of end product +No deadlines +Full control of changing it at any time -You do all the work (or pay) -It costs you money for jobs you can't (or shouldn't) do yourself like editing -Extremely limited reach of audience, very hard to sell

I queried GA/BE around a bit but ultimately decided to self publish it. It's just too niche for mainstream, being a weird genre mix up with way too queer characters. Multiple neopronouns used by funky angels in magic school slice of life that turns apocalyptic? yeah, I felt it'd be best I just put it out.

You'll need to

Edit the text (I'd recc multiple friends, a paid editor)

Proofread the text (I'd recc paying a pro)

Assemble the text files formatting (for digital, print)

Get a cover

Make pages for it on GoodReads etc and promote it

Self-publishing can be a lot of work. I did GA/BE's interiors myself using first Microsoft word, then adobe indesign for the recent revamp. Using Word/other text programs can give you a fully workable interior file, but abusing the free trial system of adobe will allow more advanced inclusions. Getting ebook files to work is a nightmare, and print can also be a pain- it's a lot of following online tutorials and trial and error I found. Calibre then is the program you use to finish digital files for release.

Costs for editing can be very high. Editing is a high skill, high time job- I got my books done on discount from a friend for next to nothing, but expect definitely a few hundred bucks. Research though fair prices. You don't need to hire someone to proofread or edit, but it is a good idea. That or outsource to many friends, ideally ones who give honest feedback. A proofreader is much cheaper as they only look for errors, I again got it cheap for 65£ per book. Art wise, I bought mine on commission- talk to an artist and make it clear it is for a commercial project and that you have the right to sell the end result. My cover for each book was about 100£

You might notice this is adding up to a few hundred quid, and yes: it cost me like, 350£ or so per book to publish, even with myself doing a lot of the work. This is a lot! Does it pay back? Usually no. I have at this point now "made a profit", but it took years. You can't typically go into self publishing looking for profit.

I really enjoy self publishing GA. It meant I could put a project out that I kinda only made for me, and have full rights to do whatever I want with it. I got to design the cover and choose what to do at every step... but it was a crazy amount of intensive work too. Marketing wise I've found is about impossible- your best bet 100% is to send the book to as many people as possible (digitally) for review and just try to get enough people reading it. Then you hope they like it and talk about it. I've found no other method of marketing particularly useful: word of mouth is still king.

Indie Publishing:

Indie pubbin:

+Don't have to spend any money (get paid) +Professional editing/cover/formatting +Backing of publishing house's marketing team -Deadlines -Less creative control -Contracted -Must query and be accepted

My first book was Angel Radio, which actually I sold when I was 17. came out when I was 18. The timescale for traditional publishing, even indie, is typically at least a year.

There's a lot of indie publishers out there, and we should read them more often. However, being published by an indie publisher (aka, a small, non-mainstream one- unlikely to ever be 'on shelves') takes extra, different work.

Do your research!!! There's a LOT of scam publishers out there. A publisher will never, ever, not even slightly ever, charge you money or pressure you to spend money (like buying your own copies of the book). A great way to check is to just look up 'publisher name + scam'.

Prepare a query letter. This is a pitch for your book, basic book info, and a bit about you. Every publishing house will have a 'submissions' page which explains specific wants (such as several pages of your book or a synopsis), so every application is slightly custom.

Query and wait. It takes many weeks to hear back with queries. Usually you should do them in small batches of like five. It's very rare to get a deal- it may not be your book, it might just be market trends or they already got a book about dragons on order.

DOUBLE CHECK YOUR CONTRACT. Contracts can be hard, so seek help if you want, though I've found my one contract to be not that long and readable. Still, you should always read a contract, especially as a scam publisher might try to trick you there.

Indie publishing is good because... it's more accessible and diverse than mainstream, but still offers the same benefits to authors. Just on a way smaller scale. I don't think my publisher, Harmony Ink Press, did much jack or shit for me marketing wise, and that's pretty typical. Marketing is very hit or miss and very expensive, so the onus is still on you to market (spoilers, these days marketing is on you no matter what). You also have more leeway in edits and covers- I designed AR's rough cover and worked with the artist directly! That's uncommon.

Most indie publishers also have a common royalty scheme where you pay it back. This isn't a hallmark of a scam, it's pretty normal: You get advance cash upfront, but then do not earn royalties until your book has paid itself off. Which it may not. Angel Radio sold for 500$, not a huge amount but not exactly tiny, especially for a teen. But I haven't earned a penny on royalties because it never sold well enough! I think I'm a little over halfway there.

Traditional Publishing

(I don't have a book of this type. yet...?)

Y'know, like, books?

+Large advance +Big support team +Marketing +Books on shelves +Most lucrative and recognizable -Sharper deadlines -Least control and rights -Must query (hardcore mode) -Still marketing yourself

Traditional publishing is the longest timescale and hardest method. Obvs. You again are looking to write a good query, but now you need to go through a literary agent. You query an agent with your book (again, should only ever be free), the agent then essentially queries publishers on your behalf ("out on submission"). An agent is your liaison to the business of publishing, taking a portion of your earnings for the service. You just can't make it into publishing without an agent.

A query letter ideally is... roughly, quickly, this is my format guide.

Hi there [actual agent name]

I'm here proposing my cool book, XYZ of ABC, a GENRE book of ??k words that IS SOMETHING UNIQUE SELLING POINT. MAIN CHARACTER is LIKE THIS but faced CONFLICT when PLOT HAPPENS, in SOME KINDA WORLD OR WHATEVER. THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU WRITE A 2-3 SENTENCE PLOT BLURB. But when TWIST happens, will MC have SOME EYECATCHING IDEA? This book will appeal to fans of THIS KINDA THING and is extra good because RELEVENT DETAIL LIKE OWNVOICES. I believe JUST KEEP SELLING KID. I myself SOME SORT OF ACCOMPLISHMENT LIKE UNI, PAIRED WITH A RELEVANT HOBBY. thank you for your time

Hot and dirty, something like that. You gotta recall at all times this is a market. It is economic. Your passion... matters, but uh. It doesn't matter. Gosh that sounds rough. But make your passion clear but your sound business proposal clearer: You need to show why your book is worth picking over thousands of other queries.

Querying is a horrible torturous process that does help you slowly build up exposure therapy to rejection and failure. Anyways, that will take a bit typically (I've been querying on and off for ten years for an agent, but a lot has been 'off' time). Then you wait and eventually, bam! Probably post some edits, your book is sold.

You still wait a long time though, and have a lot of work to do. So much work. Your book will come out on shelves at the end, sure, but that's still not a promise of success. The author these days is especially the product, and while you start on a higher stage (maybe even the marketing team will f---ing do something), you still gotta claw. There's a high level of scrutiny too on debut authors on any tier, but especially the traditional publishing tier. So your success is very dependent on each book you do, with it being harder and harder to sell books if you aren't doing fantastic.

Still, it's hard to deny the appeal of that mainstream success. Man, I'm chasing it myself! But it's not just easy book out there you go. I'm pals with traditionally published authors and you'll still be very busy, if you can get your foot on the ladder with an agent to begin with. Being on submission generally takes months, and even when your book is with a publisher it may be a lot of time and work before it ever comes out. Even then, hitting the shelves still doesn't mean you're set for life.

Still. Good luck. Go try!

(BTW look at my books, I guess, as a sticker on what I hope is good advice, and good luck! I first decided to try publishing Angel Radio with HIP because of a post by someone else published by them on tumblr... like 10 years ago now....)

Gum ebook

Amaz print

Goodreads)

[gorgonarcher]

15th Game - Deviant: The Renegade

First, I shall get on with some ranting about the history of White Wolf and Onyx Path.

Deviant is a game within the Chronicles of Darkness setting which was originally referred to as World of Darkness and was intended to replace the original World of Darkness after that setting had it's apocalypse.

White Wolf came out with it before they were bought out and were far too aggressive about trying to get people to purchase this new game. Their methods extended to sending cease and desist letters to people running games on public internet forums or sites and renting out venues so that LARP groups lost their normal place to gather.

Meanwhile other workplace issues ended causing several veteran developers left the company and ended up forming Onyx Path Games.

At some point the decision was made to rebrand the new World of Darkness into the Chronicles of Darkness and to develop both lines, basically retconning the apocalypse of the original World of Darkness, or at least delaying it. The development of Chronicles of Darkness was outsourced to Onyx Path.

Also, Paradox Entertainment, better known for grand strategy video games like Crusader Kings, bought out White Wolf entirely.

I'm not sure of the exact sequencing of the Onyx Path exodus/formation, Chronicles of Darkness rebranding, Paradox Entertainment buyout, and Onyx Path outsourcing.

Regardless the end result (we wish) had Onyx Path writing Chronicles of Darkness which produced games like:

Vampire: The Requiem

Werewolf: The Forsaken

Mage: The Awakening

Promethean: The Created

Changeling: The Lost

Hunter: The Vigil

Geist: The Sin-Eaters

Mummy: The Curse

Demon: The Descent

Beast: The Primordial

Deviant: The Renegades

Onyx Path is a largely much better company than the current White Wolf is, even if it isn't free of its own scandals (look into Beast: The Primordial's issues if you want to be depressed). They've made some of my favorite games and we were expecting them to continue developing Onyx Path for the foreseeable future.

But nah.

White Wolf, or rather Paradox Entertainment, have decided that they are no longer interested in maintaining both lines. So, they've stopped outsourcing to Onyx Path and are basically burying the Chronicles line. And with the lead developers on White Wolf taking creative decisions that involve ignoring everything their cultural advisors pointed out and essentially betraying the flawed but generally progressive intentions of the original games, I'm not really interested in their products anymore.

Onyx Path is creating it's own urban fantasy/horror game called Curseborn. So, I have that to look forward to. But until then, I think I shall more the loss of Chronicles with a gorgon archer build using Chronicles game of dark superheroes: Deviant: The Renegades

The Game

Within Deviant, you play "The Broken" people whose souls have shattered leaving them as fragmented versions of their former selves. But in this fragmenting they have acquired some level of power. Each Deviant is different. Some acquired their powers as a result of the unethical experiments of evil scientists and corporations. Others came in contact with alien or paranatural substances that mutated them. Some few volunteered to be enhanced or even did it to themselves. And still others were born with the potential to spontaneously become fractured and inhumanly powerful later on.

The game focuses around the conflict between the Renegades and one or more Conspiracies that want to collect and control the Broken for their own purposes.

This game firmly exists within the Chronicles of Darkness setting alongside vampires, werewolves, mages and the rest. Population wise, all the supernaturals are generally more rare than in World of Darkness, and by and large even the largest conspiracies lack the omnipresent nature they do in the World of Darkness. Deviants are among the smaller population groups alongside Sin-Eaters, Mummies, Prometheans, and Demons. Like all the games, there is mention of the other groups here and there, but largely you're only going to be interacting with other Deviants, Conspiracies, and the occasional Deviant-adjacent horrors that come out of said Conspiracies.

Character Creation Steps

There are nine steps to character creation:

Step One: Determine Chronicle Threat Level

Step Two: Character Concept

Step Three: Select Attributes

Step Four: Select Skills

Step Five: Select Skill Specialties

Step Six: Divergence

Step Seven: Select Merits

Step Eight: Determine Advantages

Step Nine: Shape Cohort and Conspiracy

Step One: Determine Chronicle Threat Level

In this step we determine the power level of the campaign. This decision determines both the power of the characters and the power of the Conspiracy that they are working against.

In this case, we're going to go a bit in the middle and aim for a Dysplasia level campaign. This means that our gorgon archer here will have 7 total dots of powers on top of the one free dot every Broken gets. Standing 3 for a conspiracy implies "Regionally influential, or global but diffuse, or local but ubiquitous."

Step Two: Character Concept

Deviants are heavily focused on revenge, so whatever she places as her surface, there's a very angry core to our gorgon archer here. In thinking about her origin, I'm thinking she was an unwilling subject to an experiment trying to graft spiritual elements onto people. She's basically an early human trial for supersoldier project in the planning. Lucky her, she didn't end up dead.

I'm thinking she was not kidnapped and pulled into experimentation, but rather was invited to be a trial patient for an experimental medical treatment. I'm uncertain what exactly the treatment was for right now.

Step Three: Select Attributes

As with most Storyteller or Storypath games, there are three categories of attributes:

Mental: Intelligence, Wits, Resolve

Physical: Strength, Dexterity, Stamina

Social: Presence, Manipulation, Composure

We need to rank these into primary, secondary, and tertiary priorities. Each attribute gets one free dot and we get a number of other dots to assign based on our priorities.

Primary: 5 dots

Secondary: 4 dots

Tertiary: 3 dots

I'm going to assign the primary here to Mental, the secondary to Physical, and the tertiary to Social. The maximum any attribute can get here is 5.

My thought here is that she's reasonable intelligent and figured out what was going on with her before the conspiracy could figure out she was expressing mutations and vanished out from under their noses. I imagine the emotional consequences of her Divergence (the shattering of her soul) probably impacted her social abilities hard, but living off grid for a bit has improved her physical capability. That said, I'm going with the following:

Mental: Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 3

Physical: Strength: 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2

Social: Presence: 1, Manipulation 2, Composure 3

I suspect the sudden trust issues has made retiring and given her a difficulty with expressing herself, but she was able to keep calm and present a false front enough to avoid letting the people watching her know she was doing a vanishing act. Hence Presence taking the hit.

Similarly, I suspect she's built up her ability to get out of sight and be stealthy, along with the archery. Hence why Dexterity is high.

Step Four: Select Skills

Like with Attributes, Skills are also divided into Mental, Physical, and Social and we are again going to prioritize here giving the following number of dots. As a note, skills do not get free dots the way attributes do. However, Skills have the same maximum of 5 as compared to Attributes.

Primary: 11

Secondary: 7

Tertiary: 4

In this case, I think we're going to do a bit of a different priority with Social in primary, Mental in secondary, and Physical in tertiary. I'm thinking she wasn't in one of the careers that really leans into the Mental skills and her Physical skills are her newest acquisition. For actually spending them I think the following:

Social: Empathy 2, Expression 3, Persuasion 2, Streetwise 1, Subterfuge 3

Mental: Academics 3, Computer 2, Investigation 2

Physical: Athletics 2, Stealth 1, Survival 1

Step Five: Select Skill Specialities

Now we choose 3 specialties. A specialty is a short phrase or description for a particular area of expertise the character has. These cannot be attached to a Skill with 0 dots. But they basically act as a bonus die when the situation comes up. I'm going with the following:

Athletics: Archery

Streetwise: Urban

Subterfuge: Poker Face

These represent either how she was able to avoid her watchers realizing she'd noticed them, or else skills she's picked up since doing her vanishing act.

Step Six: Divergence

This is where the supernatural stuff starts. We are going to determine her powers and other such things here. To start with we need to choose her Origin and her Clade. The choice of Origin breaks down as follows:

Autourgics (The Elect) - Wanted to be Remade and sought it out. They may even have done it to themselves.

Epimorphs (The Volunteers) - Agreed to be Remade due to threats or promises.

Exomorphs (The Unwilling) - Never wanted to be Remade, it was forced on them.

Genotypal (The Born) - Ancestry or parentage meant being Remade was inevitable.

Pathological (The Accidents) - Pure unmitigated circumstance. Bitten by a radiaoactive spider.

With the description we came up with in the Concept step, we already know that she is an Exomorph since she was lied to and never realized she was part of such an experiment. Thus she is one of the Unwilling. This gets her an extra dot of Conviction (we'll get to that later) and one free dot of an "Overt Variation" (explained soon).

The Clade represents broad categorizations of what sort of changes came about when the character was Remade. These are mostly organized by the surface similarities they express:

Cephalists (Psychics) - Have ways to intrude into and influence the human mind.

Chimerics (Hybrids) - Are a mixture of human and something else. They often appear to have animal features.

Coavtives (Infused) - Harness and channel energies, either natural or occult. Firestarters and cosmic wielders.

Invasives (Cyborgs) - Have had some of their flesh replaced by technological or occult materials.

Mutants (Grotesques) - Have aberrant biology that doesn't easily map to existing animals.

In this case, both the Hybrid and the Grotesques stand out as potentials. Looking at the powers associated with each, I'm going to choose Hybrid, because the snake bit is the most obvious and I literally described her as being grafted some sort of spirit. We can still grab some powers from the other Clades but at least half of her powers need to be from Universal or Mutant powers.

The game calls the powers "Variations" as in the ways the character varies away from other people. Each Variation is entangled with a Scar save for the one free-point that we have. These are the cost, consequence, or side-effect of that particular power. In fact, the ratings of the associated scars can determine some of the power level of the Variations.

We can also choose to take on a "Form" if we want to. These are optional adjustments to the existing forms, which the game presents as they would otherwise be difficult to represent.

Amalgams are a combination of two or more distinct, sapient beings.

Self-Made inflicted their divergence on themselves instead of being victimized by a conspiracy.

Symbiotes have variations that are sapient, such as being infested with an intelligent parasite.

Transmissable deviants can spread their forms like disease.

I think I actually like the idea of a contagious gorgon, after all, transformation is a thing I quite enjoy playing with. Likewise, Symbiote and Amalgam both fit the concept of someone who had something grafted on to them. However, I don't like forced transformation and I'm also going to stay closer to the default here and not add a Form.

I am going to take the following:

Anomalous Biology ** (Mutant)

Carapace * (Universal)

Enhanced Speed * (Universal) - This is the free Overt point

Lash * (Universal)

Predator's Cunning *** (Chimeric)

For the details:

Her Anomalous Biology leaves her Ageless and Tireless. She does not fatigue or need to sleep and she does not age.

Her Carapace is a light scaling that is surprisingly resilient taking the Kevlar option and an armor rating of 1/3, the first number is General Armor which cancels 1 point of damage entirely starting with the most severe. The second number is Ballistic armor which downgrades lethal damage taken from firearms to only be bashing. Which means she's not as resistant to damage over all, but she does survive bullet injuries quite well.

The basic level of Enhanced Speed mostly adds Scar Power to Initiative rolls and doubles her speed when she moves under her own power. No choice here.

Lash is going to be her gaze here. I'm going to make it a Ranged cutting attack, meaning it does lethal damage, using Dexterity + Athletics as she tries to angle to get eye contact. I imagine the injury manifests as calcification. It will be Sickening so that it inflicts the "Sick" Tilt (see below). The Lash has to be activated, so she has to take an action in order to be able to use them. Maybe she has to take a moment to get in the proper headssspace.

Now we come to her Chimeric variation. For Predator's Cunning 3, she gets both the options available at Magnitude 1. This means that people looking for her suffer a penalty to notice her as she sees them first and she is able to activate a lash or ready a weapon as a reflexive action. Then she gets a choice of one from Magnitude 3 and I'm going to choose "Alert" which means that she benefits from the ability to ready a weapon even if ambushed and may elude notice even when she's not aware someone is trying to watch or follow her.

Now we have to choose scars. Multiple variations can be assigned to the same Scar but the reverse is not also true. You can't have the same variation attached to two different scars.

Each Scar can cover a number of Variations based on the highest magnitude involved.

There are three Scar traits: Scar Power, Scar Finesse, and Scar Resistance Each scar is associated with one of the three types of Attributes and these traits are determined by those attributes:

Mental: Intelligence = Scar Power, Wits = Scar Finesse, and Resolve = Scar Resistance

Physical: Strength = Scar Power, Dexterity = Scar Finesse, and Stamina = Scar Resistance

Social: Presence = Scar Power, Manipulation = Scar Finesse, and Composure = Scar Resistance

I am going with the following Scars and noting the entangled Variations

Conspicuous Appearance 2 - Lash, Carapace (Physical)

Bane (Mirrors) 2 - Anomalous Biology (Physical)

Lying Eyes 3 - Predator's Cunning (Social)

Carapace does not depend on Scar Power, Finesse, or Resistance so there's no change to its benefit.

Her Lash also does not have any of the traits that would be improved by Scar Power, Finesse, or Resistance, so it goes unchanged with a basic damage rating of 0.

Neither of her Anomalous Biology changes do anything regarding Scar Power, Finesse, or Resistance, and so go unchanged.

As to Enhanced Speed, I'm going to assign it as a Mental trait. This puts its Scar Power at 2, the amount of her Intelligence attribute. This determines the bonus it gives to Initiative.

Predator's Cunning depends on Social, so it's Scar Power is 1 (Presence 1), she gets half of that (rounded up) as a bonus to avoid surprise. IE: a bonus of 1 from the Elusive trait of the rank 1 level. Similarly she can use a reflexive action to get into cover which applies a penalty to ranged attacks of the same 1 (half 1 rounded up again).

It may just be in her best interest to work on her Presence... for multiple reasons.

So, what this means is that her snake hair and scales are obvious but can still be covered up. And she just gives people a bad vibe when they first meet her. First impressions tend to go badly. She also receives pain from looking in a mirror. I'm assuming this isn't just because she's freaked out to look at herself. I'm going to assume she can look at photos of herself fine and it doesn't look that bad, inhuman, but not really ugly. But mirrors create a sort of feedback loop with her gaze so she has to avoid them.

This also means all of her scars are leveraged at this point and she has no room to gain new powers. She'll have to either develop a new scar in play or focus on her natural abilities.

We're still not done with Divergence, as we have to assign her Acclimation, Conviction and Loyalty.

Each Broken has two conflicting urges: the burning desire to seek vengeance on those that wronged them or their loved ones vs the blindingly intense loyalty they feel to people. The trauma they've experienced, the shattering of their soul, has made less extreme human connections very difficult for them.

Each dot of Conviction and Loyalty comes with a Touchstone representing either a loved ally or hated enemy. At the start, the Remade (interchangable with Broken) have 3 dots of Conviction and 1 dot of Loyalty and they gain a free dot based on their origin. Exomorph, the Unwilling, get a bonus Conviction. So our gorgon here has:

Conviction 4

Loyalty 1

The Acclimation is the level to which the deviant has acclimated to their change. At base, a Deviant starts at an Acclimation of 0 but can spend 5 merit points to raise it to 1 or all 10 merit points to raise it to 2.

Acclimation 0

Step Seven: Select Merits

As already said, we could spend all 10 points of merits on raising Acclimation, but instead we're going to do some merits.

One thing I love to do with Chronicles games is to take on the Professional Training merit. Looking at her skills I'm thinking she's a writer of some sort. Perhaps used to earn her money doing gig-writing for websites, especially aiming at academic type websites.

There is no archery Fighting style, but I will adapt the Marksmanship merit to it for the first level.

I'm also taking Good Samaritan and Hypervigilance. I'm also taking one rank of Anonymity, Resources (perhaps she still does writing on blogs for some funds), and Parkour. Resulting in the following:

Professional Training 1 - 2 dots of Contacts in the field (blog writing)

Professional Training 2 - Two asset skills: Expression, Investigation. They get 9 again (9s and 10s explode)

Professional Training 3 - A third asset skill Investigation. And two specialties: Expression (Layspeak) and Investigation (Archival Research)

Good Samaritan 2 - gain a +2 bonus to Intimidation or Persuasion when warning Baselines away from the Conspiracy. Take a Beat when risking discovery to aid Baselines other than Loyalty Touchstones. Beats build up into Experience.

Hypervigilance 1 - 8-again to detect ambushes, traps, or snares (8s, 9s, and 10s explode), unfortunately, exceptional successes will give her the Spooked condition.

Marksmanship (Athletics/Archery version) 1 - Increases maximum bonus for aiming to Composure + Athletics (6) instead of 3.

Resources 1 - some minor disposable income

Parkour 1 - subtract Parkour rank from successes needed to escape, ignore Athletics penalties from environment equal to parkour

Anonymity 1 - Avoids official authoritative influence. Attempts to find her paper trail suffer a -1 penalty.

That's 10 points.

Step Eight: Determine Advantages

In prior Storyteller games "Advantages" usually referred to the splat unique stats like Conviction, Acclimation, Blood Pool, Rage, etc. In this case it's referring to figured stats.

Willpower: Resolve + Composure = 6

Health: Size (default 5 for humans) + Stamina = 7

Speed: (5 + Strength + Dexterity) x 2 (Enhanced Speed) = 20

Initiative: Dexterity + Composure + Enhanced Speed bonus = 8

Defense: The lower of Wits and Dexterity (both 3) + Athletics = 6

There is one unique stat to Deviants here: Stability, relating to how stable their mutations are. Deviants have to manage this because if they become unstable, they'll fall apart as their mutations kill them in whatever way is appropriate to how they were Broken in the first place.

We are also encouraged to pick an Aspiration here, which is a goal that we seek to accomplish such as "Escape a Pursuit". In this case, I want to more address the difficulty her appearance and aura give her in interacting with baselines (normal humans) so I want to give her the aspiration "have a peaceful conversation with a Baseline stranger".

Step Nine: Shape Cohort and Conspiracy

This is the point where you would talk about how you fit in with the other characters in the group. But also, this is where we set up the Conviction and Loyalty touchstones and discuss the nature of the conspiracy that ruined her.

While the GM creates the specifics of the Conspiracy for the players to investigate and uncover, I'm going to say that the Conspiracy in question here is a defense contractor researching the possibility of creating super-soldiers by the means of grafting supernatural traits onto normal humans. They are a local offshoot of another company with Regional Influence and use a local pharmaceutical lab as a front for collecting unwitting research subjects.

Touchstones

Conviction - Fallis Pharmaceutical Labs - the company her conspiracy worked through to change her. They had been a local company with a pretty good reputation. Our gorgon wouldn't have been surprised if they were doing something shady, but not eldritch super soldier experiments.

Conviction - The Grey Hats - she doesn't know their actual name, but calls them this based on the fact that the people watching her were all wearing some form of grey hat. She's still looking for a proper name for them. They don't always wear grey hats, of course, but she's found other ways to identify them

Conviction - Donner - she overheard this name after barely escaping pursuit and hiding barely ten feet away as they talked about her. He was leading her pursuit and referred to her as an object using pronouns like "it". She's seen him a few times since then.

Conviction - Macen - whoever was on the other end of the phone for that conversation, the person calling Donner's shots. She's actually had conversations with this person when they've hacked into television screens and CCTV cameras. The voice-changer prevented identification, but where Donner treats her as an object, Macen is all too happy to cause her, and other people, pain. They definitely see their victims as people and love to torture all the more.

Loyalty - Jin Klein - A colleague and former roommate, Jin eventually graduated into being a full on medical doctor. The only person our gorgon has revealed herself to when she needed help as the transformation initially took hold.

And I'm going to name our gorgon:

Devyn Vargas

Concept

Origin: Exomorph (The Unwiling)

Clade: Chimeric (Hybrid)

Advantages

Willpower: 6

Health: 7

Speed: 20

Initiative: 8

Defense: 6

Size 5

Stability: 5

Acclimation: 0

Conviction: 4

Loyalty: 1

Attributes

Mental: Intelligence: 2, Wits: 3, Resolve: 3

Physical: Strength: 2, Dexterity: 3, Stamina: 2

Social: Presence: 1, Manipulation: 2, Composure: 3

Skills

Social

Empathy 2

Expression 3 (Layspeak)

Persuasion 2

Streetwise 1

Subterfuge 3 (Poker Face)

Mental

Academics 3

Computer 2

Investigation 2 (Archival Research)

Physical

Athletics 2 (Archery)

Stealth 1

Survival 1 (Urban)

Variations and Scars

Conspicuous Appearance 2

Lash 1 (Ranged Cutting, Dex+Ath, Sickening) - Petrifying Gaze

Carapace 1 (Kevlar) - Scaled skin

Bane (Mirrors) 2

Anomalous Biology 2 (Ageless, Tireless)

Lying Eyes 3

Predator's Cunning 3 (Elusive, Vigilant, Alert, Scar Power: 1)

Free Variation: Enhanced Speed 1 (Double speed, Initiative Bonus, Scar Power 2)

Merits

Professional Training (Blog Writer) 3 - Asset Skills (9 again): Expression, Academics, Investigation, Bonus Specialties

Good Samaritan - +2 to Intimidate or Persuade Baselines away from Conspiracy. Gain a beat (XP) when you risk discovery to help a Baseline.

Hypervigilance - 8 again to detect ambushes, traps, and snares, Downside: Gain Spooked condition on exceptional success.

Marksmanship(Athletics) 1 - Maximum aim bonus is Dex+Ath(6).

Resources 1 - some minor disposable income

Parkour 1 - subtract Parkour rank from successes needed to escape, ignore Athletics penalties from environment equal to parkour

Anonymity 1 - Avoids official authoritative influence. Attempts to find her paper trail suffer a -1 penalty.

Touchstones

Conviction - Fallis Pharmaceutical Labs - the company her conspiracy worked through to change her. They had been a local company with a pretty good reputation. Our gorgon wouldn't have been surprised if they were doing something shady, but not eldritch super soldier experiments.

Conviction - The Grey Hats - she doesn't know their actual name, but calls them this based on the fact that the people watching her were all wearing some form of grey hat. She's still looking for a proper name for them. They don't always wear grey hats, of course, but she's found other ways to identify them

Conviction - Donner - she overheard this name after barely escaping pursuit and hiding barely ten feet away as they talked about her. He was leading her pursuit and referred to her as an object using pronouns like "it". She's seen him a few times since then.

Conviction - Macen - whoever was on the other end of the phone for that conversation, the person calling Donner's shots. She's actually had conversations with this person when they've hacked into television screens and CCTV cameras. The voice-changer prevented identification, but where Donner treats her as an object, Macen is all too happy to cause her, and other people, pain. They definitely see their victims as people and love to torture all the more.

Loyalty - Jin Klein - A colleague and former roommate, Jin eventually graduated into being a full on medical doctor. The only person our gorgon has revealed herself to when she needed help as the transformation initially took hold.

[narcisoespiritu]

Jet Set Radio Sticker - Beat

Hello hello hello.

June was a little busy and unsettling (I shouldn't be surprised). With the end of the semester at the College for Creative Studies, I'm somehow, once again, finding myself in a scramble. There are many low points, but I'm managing to bounce back. I should try to find another, different avenue that doesn't lead to me finding myself in a really tough summer, but only time will tell if I can push into a better situation.

For now, the Sticker Club Rewards for June are these Jet Set Radio Stickers. Measuring at nearly 6 x 6" inches, this sticker celebrating Beat from Jet Set Radio, could be my largest sticker to date. It would be more costly to produce these stickers if I were outsourcing the production. Thanks, in part, to my patrons, it means that I'm able to own some of the machines required to make stickers like this.

No, I don't think anyone can thrive or even survive what I'm earning on that platform, but it's something and it makes a difference when it counts. Everything adds up, is what I tell students.

So, I'm still going. I'm still working towards the goals I have.

And I'm grateful to you for staying with me. If you sign up for my P*treon this week, you'll get this Jet Set Radio Beat holographic sticker ok. Plus, you'll help to make my life a lot easier some day.