[ACCEPTED] Lore Developer Application: NebulaFlare

[NebulaFlare]

Position Being Applied For Synthetic Lore Developer/Editor

Past Experiences/Knowledge:

I've been a freelance writer as a hobby, and I've also taken a class or two in college, with creative writing and formal business writing. Heck yes. I've also written up a page that was added as canon lore, and I have a few more synth-based lore in the lineup.

Lastly, if you want to consider it 'Experience', I play a total of 3.5 IPCs. (The .5 being a character I have never really had the chance to showcase because I rarely ever get into the Antag slot. But the character is there). I've probably delved into the Synthetic lore more than any other species, and I try to apply my knowledge with the many interactions I've had with my Roboticist, Karima.

And I write in acceptable grammar! That counts for something, right?

...Yeah, I know it's not perfect. >.>;

Examples of Past Work:

Canon Stuff, Fluff, and Requests:

https://aurorastation.org/wiki/index.php?title=SSTA - SSTA Wiki Page

http://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=78&t=3719&p=45878 - IPC Legalization Lore Request

http://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=78&t=6073 - IPC Music Band Lore Request

http://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=6044 - UNITY Community Page

Preferred Mode of Communication Forum messenger, Byond Pager, Skype.

Additional Comments:

With how long I've been hanging out with Aurora, I really want to give something back. I failed (horrendously) before by trying to be a Mapper. Thaaaat didn't go well. -cries in the corner in shame-

However, I will put this out; right here, right now. That way I won't end up shooting myself in the proverbial foot. My real-life schedule is crazy at best, and while my desire to commit to this is in full swing, I know from experience that I'll be shaky with it. Real life revolves around the recovery of my injury (Yes, that thing I mentioned sooooo many months ago still haunts me) and quite honestly, once this issue has healed and disappeared, I'll be focusing more on getting my life back on track.

But! I need an excuse to brush up on my writing skills. I will try to commit to the expectations of a Lore Dev, and I really do want to work with other Lore Devs and watch this community blossom. But I equally might just up and vanish because of things.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Hello!

We already have a developer put in charge of the broad setting of "synthetic" overseeing. I can't really see an additional way to include another overseer that wouldn't involve awkward overlap and shared responsibilities, which tend to go very awkwardly and poorly unless the individuals sing the same tune all the time.

A lot of your application also repeats this trend I've seen with others - "I can't code, map, or sprite, so I thought I'd apply to the lore team to brush up my writing skills!" makes it very difficult for me to consider an application because it comes off as very unintentionally condescending.

My last developer gains have been more-so me appointing them after hearty and robust debate and discussion about some aspect of the lore they were passionate about - rrrrr and Loow spent a great deal of time and effort telling me why my synthetic and skrell lore sucks and how they could do better in those respective areas, and I agree with them. I'm very eager about seeing genuine investment - it's very easy to tell when someone has a passion or really groovy investment into something because they can criticize where it's going and offer alternatives. I'm not really able to find that here - it's difficult to articulate, but the application seems to be a big shrug with a "I'll probably leave eventually but I'll do what I can"

Do you have anything you really want to do with lore development? What are you passionate about?

[NebulaFlare]

Right after I posted the app, I found out that rrrrr was already synthetic lore head (oops!). Most of the lore that I would love to delve into already have lore heads, and I would not want to step on their turf. The only other options I would love to take a look at would be either the Frontier or the Syndicate lore. But unless I'm mistaken, frontier is largely left undeveloped to allow creativity, and Syndicate is...well, we don't have anyone for Syndicate lore, do we? But I don't know if I can pull off something like that. I mean, I - I bet I could, if I have a nice idea of guidelines to keep it from going off a tangent of overly-snowflake.

Instead, perhaps I could ask to work as an editor for the wiki/lore pages? One things that has irked me over the official pages was their informal delivery. I'm mostly referring to things like the Corporate Regulations and job guides. They tend to lack a professional tone, and most of the information is easily scattered across several pages, instead of condensed in a single accessible guide. A state-of-the-art corporation would be more apt to providing concrete information for certain careers, outlining rules and regulations so that it was easily interpreted, and gave no room for argument. I can't count the number of times when I would play security, I would have to frantically search up a regulation or some little known rule and justify my argument ingame. And doing a word-by-word quotes comes out as...unprofessional.

Actually...yeah. The more I think about it, the more I realize I would have a lot of fun with Syndicate lore. Of all the antags, anything-Syndicate is by far the best, and my most favorite. I stray away from all of the non-sci-fi themes of SS13, simply because of the give-all answer of 'lol bluespace'. I mean, wizards and cultists are fiiiiine, but they just...clash. Magic should not exist in a sci-fi enviroment, not unless you can back it up with some solid science. I just want to keep fantasy seperate from sci-fi, but that is a personal preferance. But top-secret agents infiltrating powerful megacorporations to bring about a new space-age? An elaborate mastermind bent on freeing the shackles of NanoTrasen by all means necessary, coupled with sneaky backstabs and money laundering of a sci-fi mafia? That is so....Mmmm! It's like a sinister delicious scoop of chocolate lava cake, with melted vanilla ice cream...it's soo good.

But if I recall, Skull is working to bring about a better antag page. So yes. I see we already have a lorepage of Syndicate stuff, but...maybe I can fluff out of who-knows-what and more. Write up classified data that only heads of staff would know, or create propaganda newsletters and oh look! Syndicates have a hand in recruiting synthetics! As it stands now ingame, anything 'syndicate' is either muddled with confusion, unintentional metagame, "Big giant red S! Bad! Me brig you!" or, "They blackmailed me and kidnapped my kids if I said I wouldn't do it.. *sob*" (I've been guilty of using that excuse...) If I had a guideline of 'we want/we don't want' in the Syndicate section, I could totally come up with some villainous backstory lore for it! I would love that!