They nod along. "Yes, solid. What kinds of targets, do you think? It shouldn't be obvious that I made them, but Purity can destroy buildings if she's really trying and yet she's not all that strong against Endbringers, so they should ideally look more durable than that. Also do you think you could get one of your bots to follow us around while I do things? So we can upload them to the channel, editing it so we look badass—but will probably need permission from Branding or something before that, did they ever hire someone new?"

"...Pluck a boat wreck out of the harbor," Lorica says after a moment. "And yeah, I have recordings of everything already, editing would be work, we don't have a new branding person yet, they're looking, we're supposed to borrow Boston's if we need consultation."

"What do you mean, pluck a boat wreck out of the harbor?"

"It's not ideal, exactly, but it's a piece of big junk that nobody'll miss - or think they'd miss, since you won't be using a real one. It's not more durable than a building but if you make it to begin with you can vaporize it."

"Oh. Yeah, good idea. About branding, what do you suppose I could say to convince them to let me do the channel thing without sounding like I'm just in it for the attention? ...it has been two months, but I don't exactly have a good track record with them."

"Boston person might not even know all the details? Maybe? Depends how good they are at their job and whether they expect to actually get any requests from this quarter. The thing though is that you can be in it for the attention as long as you're in it for the right kind of attention. The point of Branding is to get you the right kind of attention. Mm - assmeble a sample episode, bot will send you whatever footage you ask for, send that to the branding person and ask permission to put it up 'and maybe make it a series if the reception is good'?"

"Yeah, sounds good. I think taking Purity out is a good first episode, people are curious about what exactly happened there, and the press footage's pretty bad and doesn't cover even half of the fight."

"Sure. And voiceover it in some suitably charming way. You write, bot can edit."

Nod. "Also, we could add 'power testing' episodes where I do suitably impressive things, including the Endbringer gun. I'm also thinking that I should start out small and 'become more powerful' as these episodes go, if I just start out with the full range of my skills and then don't change much people won't expect the kind of improvement I need them to."

"Sure, you didn't actually stretch your power concept that much in the Purity fight. Show off that you can do animals, then that you can self-duplicate, then that you can do Changer stuff - do impressions or something - imply you can copy powers! - and at some point during this sequence when you have enough views do the Endbringer gun, guest star Lorica."

"Yeah. How spread out should those be, do you think? Once a week? Twice? What kind of commentary do you think the fights should have, stuff like a general description of what's going on that's not immediately obvious, like what I'm thinking, or what? Don't wanna give out too many tactical details, of course, but if we 'let a few details slip,' the kind of detail that makes us look good without compromising strategy too much, sounds good."

"What you're thinking, speculations about what the opponents were thinking, what you would've done if something hadn't worked within the bounds of the amount of power you're showing? Depending on what you want to project you can make the occasional joke at your own expense. Like when Purity blasted you down to Rewind... 'I don't remember this part but that probably hurt'?"

They laugh. "Yeah, that's good, I like that. Should also get consent of all the people who show up in the videos. ...maybe not show Armsmaster and Chevalier, they mostly got their butts handed to them by Fireball."

"And I don't think under the circumstances you ought to ask Purity or Hookwolf or Rewind."

"Right."

"But I don't mind appearing, to the mostly nonexistent extent I show up personally in the interesting bits."

"I could mention which parts were your idea, within the constraints of not revealing too much about strategy."

"If you like, yeah, you're trying to emphasize your powers being cool, not that you're Sun Tzu. Might make you look less full of yourself."

"Mmhm, the self-deprecating humor could make me more relatable, too, I want people to want me to win, not to be secretly wishing for that butthole to fail and learn their place."

"Yeah. Don't overdo it, though, people only outright expect underdogs to win in movies."

"'Course. I mean, we did basically singlehandedly take Purity out. Granted, she was distracted trying to multitask between me and Rewind and trying to protect Hookwolf, but we don't need to play that aspect up."

"I don't think it counts as singlehanded if there were two of us."

Pause. "Doublehandedly?"

Snort.

"Anyway, yeah, I like that, that sounds good. Other ideas? Each Endbringer's its own little beast, I need to make people believe Behemoth won't just dynakinesis the blast away, and Leviathan won't just speedster out of the way. I'm definitely not going to a Simurgh attack until the other two have been killed dead, don't think we need to worry about her."