Money makes the world go round.
It's always been that way and you have the feeling that isn't going to change anytime soon. Dreamers always say money can't buy you happiness, and maybe they're right, but it sure as hell can buy you the best medical care, the best opportunities in life, or, if nothing else, the freedom to go on constant holidays so you can find happiness the less-mercenary way. If true happiness is finding someone to love and settle down with, then money helps you afford all the nights out to find that person, and lets you buy yourselves a big house, and be financially secure, and give your children the best start in life.
Yeah, money might not be able to buy you happiness but it sure as hell facilitates it.
Most people are in one of two camps – they're born into money, or they're not. It's a binary equation. You have the dubious honour of being in the middle-ground; someone born into money, but who then lost it catastrophically. No. That isn't fair. You didn't lose it. Your old man did, whittling away the family fortune until there was nothing left and he offed himself.
Didn't even have the kindness to take out some life insurance before he did. Typical.
Now, you're destitute. Or soon to be.
You managed to squirrel away a little money before the debtors started coming in to take everything that wasn't bolted down, and then everything that was, but it won't last long. You knew you had to get out of Atlas. The rich rule there, and while your family might have been one of them, it sure ain't now. Worse still, any money you earn under your old name is bound to draw people looking to collect on what daddy's assets couldn't cover. You'd never be free of the debt in Atlas.
No. Atlas is out of the question, and so is your old identity. Too much baggage there, and it wouldn't do you any favours anyway. For better or worse, Rufus Goldmane is dead and gone.
You chose to head to Vale for a few reasons, but none of them were very deep. It was the closest and cheapest ship journey from Atlas. The climate isn't sweltering jungle or burning desert, and the culture is close enough to back home for you to fit in.
And you'll have to fit in. You'll have to fit in real soon, or you'll starve. You check your finances, accessing your only good bank account on your scroll.
10,000 lien.
It's not an insignificant amount for the average person to have kicking around in their bank account, but then the average person also has a job, a home, a source of food and all the other things you lack. That kind of money isn't going to last, and ever since the fall of Salem and the end of the Grimm fifty years ago, jobs aren't exactly plentiful.
It turns out that when you end the threat keeping the whole world locked away in the major cities, you kind of upend the economy. You doubt anyone could have seen that all coming, but the resultant crash of the Grimm and the opening up of the world meant a wild rush for all those unclaimed natural resources. Naturally, the SDC were the biggest winners, claiming hundreds of new mines and making fat bank off all the dust.
Other big companies did the same – and that's the problem.
The ones who benefitted were the big names and the established players who could afford to go out and get a hold of all the goodies. The average joe didn't stand a chance, and so the only jobs available were working for those companies. Hard labour, mostly. Menial low-paid work in rough conditions in the ass end of nowhere. You heard that laws didn't always apply out there, with businesses running their facilities like god-damned city states and making it up as they went along.
Used to be that huntresses and huntsmen policed the far-flung parts of Remnant, but that job is a bit pointless now the Grimm are gone. Most of the academies have become regular universities teaching tomorrow's talent. They adapted, as the rest of the world had to.
Inequality spiked as a result of it all, though. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer. Your grandpa was one of the lucky ones, or the entitled ones; he was born into money after all. Not that it matters now. Those riches are beyond you, and dwelling on the past isn't going to fix your sorry state.
There are recruitment billboards up as you arrive at Vale, detailing all the "wonderful job opportunities" in those distant business-run settlements. They always have names like Acre Farms or Gold Meadows to make themselves sound more appealing. You're smart enough to read the fine print and notice how almost all of them include little caveats in their contracts. Typically, it's that food, drink and lodge are taken from your wages. Garnishing. It's technically illegal, but who is going to police them? No one. That's the answer.
The desperate go anyway. Any money is better than none, and even if they trap you in punishing contracts they still have to pay you. It's a way to make a living, albeit not a very fulfilling or successful one. Besides, there are other opportunities.
What happens when the rich keep getting richer?
You can't eat money, and money alone doesn't make you happy. It's the spending of it that does. It's what you can buy with all that cash. The big cities nowadays are metropolises for the fabulously wealthy, where every restaurant is five-star cuisine, and the price of a small apartment is in the hundreds of thousands. It's a den of luxury and excess, and that always leads to depravity sooner or later.
Money buys experiences, but how many times can you skydive before it gets boring? How many times can you eat at a fine restaurant before it gets stale? The rich, not having to work for a living, chase the high of new experiences, and will spend almost anything to get at it. That's why so many of them end up coked out their minds or abusing drugs. They run out of safer things to indulge in.
It's why your old man lost the family fortune – because he couldn't stop chasing new experiences, no matter how expensive those got. And when the money ran out, he couldn't imagine living a life without the experiences he took for granted.
Neither could you, to be honest, but you're here now, and you've also tasted the high life. You want back into it. For revenge? Not really. Your old man is dead, and all the debtors were just doing their jobs. No, it's for you. Nothing grander than that. Nothing special. You suppose, in that regard, that you're not so different from all the other desperate people coming to Vale hoping for a miracle to hit and make them rich.
Except you're a realist. There are no miracles other than those you create.
And you know that the only way you're reclaiming your, or making a new, fortune, is going to be by playing the field and tapping into that old talent your grandfather used to make the family fortune in the first place. And the greatest commodity there is here that you can sell is experiences. You don’t have any drug farms however, nor any culinary skills to rival the greats, not the money to invest in a huge store stacked high with fancy wines and cigars.
You have 10,000 lien, your wits, and a flexible moral compass.
It's not much.
But it'll have to do.
Beyond all that, you also have those old lessons from your grandpa on how he first founded the family business, which has to count for something. The king of the red light district, they used to call him. And later it was "the gentleman". A far finer title.
Others might have turned up their nose at such a profession but sex sells. It always has and it always will. And, in a world where the rich are chasing every high and every decadence, it sells damn well. Oh, they might be all prim and proper in public, but you know behind closed doors the word "missionary" might as well be a slur. Those with free time, and the money to make use of it, are inevitably the dirtiest bastards in the land. The reason why is obvious – they've over-indulged in the vanilla and crave things new and exciting.
Illicit.
Mysterious.
That’s going to have to be your niche, and the best part about it is that it's an easy one to slot into. There aren't any great credentials involved in sex, at least on your side of things. You're certainly not good looking enough to be selling your own body. Besides, if you wanted to work like that you'd go to the mines. No, you plan to lead, manage, and maybe indulge a little here and there, but then that's to be expected, isn't it? You can't know for sure how good the service you're offering is without sampling it.
Money is tight, though. Very tight. You're going to need more, which means getting started fast. You find the cheapest hotel in Vale and book yourself in for a week, at a staggering cost of 200 lien per night. At least that covers food as well, but you're already down to 8,600 lien and you haven't even gotten started.
That changes now.
Market research is important. That's what you tell yourself as you sit on the uncomfortable bed, pop out your scroll and start searching every sex shop, brothel, and porn studio in the city. There are a few already, but thankfully there's no big monopoly. Most of them are desperate people trying to make ends meet and selling their own services.
That's the thing with the city. It's split in two. You've got two parts of it, and both could be called "market demographics" you're trying to target. The first is the mega-rich. They're obvious. They have all the money and they'll spend it like wildfire if you can provide something tempting enough. Problem is, their tastes are going to be a lot higher than a nobody can fulfil, and you know you'll need a solid reputation before any of them are tempted.
The other half are the nobodies. Vale might be a city for the rich and famous, but those people need others to serve them. Maids, chauffeurs, waiters and waitresses, shop clerks, mechanics, plumbers. The usual range of people still exist in the city, and they're honestly a lot better off than most of the people living outside it or working in the settlements. They're just not "rich", and given the high price of… well, everything, they're unlikely to ever get rich. Their lives could best be described as comfortable, as they live day by day, payday to payday.
That doesn't mean they won't make for good clients, though. They'll seek experiences to drown their misfortune in, and while they won't pay as well as the rich snobs, they'll have much lower standards too. They're almost certainly going to have to be your target audience as a nobody with an unknown name coming into the city. No one else is going to take you seriously. They might also be the best bet when it comes to recruiting some early talent – if you can convince them it's worth taking a punt on.
Again, not everyone is going to be convinced to bet themselves on a nobody. You'll probably have an easier time attracting talent once you're more established, but that raises the first question.
What kind of business are you going to open?
There are a couple of options you know from your grandfather's stories that can work out. Eventually, you want to branch into all of them, but your money isn't going to go that far and you know you need to commit.
There's always the "traditional" option of prostitution. It's a classic, for obvious reasons, and you know that people will be a lot more willing to shell out their hard-earned money when they know they're getting the whole deal out of it. The money can be good, and it'll be little effort on your part, letting you manage multiple people. If you can scrape together the cash for a brothel later on then it'll become even easier to make money and attract wealthier clientele, and you can even run pole dancing shows and gambling there. The downside is going to be finding anyone desperate enough to sign up for that. But that's a bridge you're sure you can burn. It's just a case of finding someone desperate enough.
Here in Vale, that won't be too hard, but it'll still be harder than talking to a random woman and pitching the idea. You'd be no better than a pimp to start out, and it's not like Vale is lawless – quite the opposite. Be caught mistreating any employee and you'll be in a lot of trouble. And once it's up and running, the money should be both good and stable. Much more so than the other options.
A tamer option would be a pornographic film studio. Girls are more likely to feel comfortable with that since it's just acting and not going the whole way, and the money you make can be good. But it can also be unpredictable. Yesterday's star is tomorrow's tramp, and making money off videos can be tricky. If you can find good talent and think up creative and niche ideas for films then you'll do well, but anything people can find for free on other sites isn't going to make you money.
Beyond that, you have pirated content and the usual joys of running a business on the internet to contend with. Still, big names have been made off these kinds of things, and if you can cultivate some star talent? Well, you can name your price to have them featured in big movies. There's potential to be had there, but it's going to rely on your own creativity, the talent you can find, and how well you can convince them to act.
If you can make a name for yourself as a particularly kinky studio or find a niche to corner that not a lot of other studios are, then that'll make things easier. There's no shortage of weird fetishes that hard-working people like, and as long as you're not breaking any laws it won't be an issue.
The third option is one that not a lot of people would consider, but you're desperate, and you know you're not a great guy.
Slave trading.
Technically speaking, slavery is illegal in Vale. Of course, it is. That's okay, though, because you're not about to break the law. While slavery is illegal, indentured sex servitude is not. It sounds like a moot point to a lot of people, but there really is a big difference. For one, the men and women involved have to volunteer themselves. It's consensual. Sort of. What comes after isn't, and they don’t have any freedom to decide their fate, but slavery in today's Remnant is a contract you sign into. Ten years, twenty years, sometimes even thirty, though rarely.
Why would anyone sell themselves as a slave?
Because they're desperate.
When you're a handsome young man or woman who has no hope of ever making money, and who is looking at an awful life in the mines, the thought of working ten years in depravity for a life of luxury after is tempting. What's the alternative? Forty years of back-breaking labour and no pension. It's easy to see why people sign up as slaves when that's your other option.
Slaves sign up for their contract, sign it with the government, and then they're taken to an auction to be sold. However much they're bought for, which is usually a damn lot given they're working for ten or more years in a rather intimate role, is money that belongs to them. It's invested and matched by the government and then paid out to them, with a bonus, on completion of their term.
It's good money for someone without skills, and fantastic money for someone especially beautiful. You've heard it said that truly incredible slaves can go for millions, though obviously that's in Atlas and there's no way in hell you're attracting that kind of clientele as a nobody. You'd need to build a reputation first. There's still money to be made, however. Not necessarily in finding and selling slaves – the money would belong to them – but in buying, training, and then re-selling slaves.
After all, it's the first purchase that is their money, so if you can buy a slave cheap, increase their value, then sell them on, then the money would be yours. Most slaves are all for it too because it's better to be sold for a high price. People are less likely to mistreat or damage expensive goods.
The problem with this industry is that it might take time to turn a good profit. You can probably make some quick and dirty profit buying cheap, training for a week, then selling a little higher, but the big money will only come in when you can take your time really cultivating a slave to catch the eye of a wealthier patron. The other issue will be improving the slave themselves, as every slave will be different in terms of potential and issues. Some might be easy to work with and others might be a complete pain in the ass, but you would own them legally, and they'd have no right to disobey you.
Three options. Three avenues.
All work, you know that, but the question is how you want to begin your legacy. And, well, you suppose you'll need to decide on a name for yourself as well, won't you? Need something to put down on the paperwork. You have no need for your “real” name.
One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty decisions.
>Start out as a slave trader and trainer.
>Open up a porn studio
>Become a pimp.
You keep that in mind as your fingers itch and your eyes continuously drift to your scroll as if worried the money in your account will disappear. It's tempting to dive right into any of them and just get started – just get going without any preparation.
But that way lays disaster.
It takes you an hour, but it's an hour well spent not only on deciding which path to take, but narrowing down why, the advantages and the disadvantages of it all. The slave trade with its monumental return on investment is tempting, and the brothel/gentlemen's club with the minimal amount of work and the steady income sounds so easy.
But, in the end, it's the porn studio you decide on.
The money isn't going to be as good – because who pays as much for a video as they do for actual sex? – but it has the lowest barrier to entry. All you need is a camera, a room and an actress, and this hotel room will do for now. You can look into a studio later with all the props and lights and post-editing you'll need to make a truly incredible film, but almost every studio started as a sweaty pair of amateurs at some point. You'll be no different.
Your scroll camera won't do for this, though. Any idiot with a scroll can record themselves going at it, but you don't want to make the kinds of videos that clutter the "amateur" section of a site. You need to make exclusive videos that people will be willing to pay for. That's not going to be easy. There are a lot of sites that make their living off hosting free videos nowadays, and, in a way, you're going to be competing with every free pornographic video on the internet.
Which means you'll need to make sure yours are better in every way.
A quick search online finds a store nearby selling a decent-ish camera for 1,000 lien. It's not the best model on the market, but those are more expensive than you can afford, and it's at least something you can set up on a tripod. No one wants to watch a video with a hand-held camera shaking the whole time. That'll put you down to 7,600 lien, and that's before you've even made a video.
That's fine, though. There was always going to be a set-up cost no matter what you decided to do. At least here you can star as the male lead and do a little work of your own. Most businessmen have to start on the shop floor. You figure you can graduate to cameraman and then manager later.
You're not handsome enough to draw fans or built enough to have women drooling. You're average in every way, but at least you're healthy and fit, and most people are in it for the lead actress anyway. You need to find some talent.
Talent…
It's such a strange word. Talent suggests inborn aptitude or skill, which implies something less learnt and more granted to you at birth. You don't much like the word because it makes it sound like things are set in stone no matter how hard you try, but, in this case, it probably fits. Talent at acting is all well and good but it's going to be looks that bring in the views.
Find someone sexy enough and the viewers won't care if they can't act.
Though, obviously, having both is ideal.
Still, that means you need to source an actress. That isn't necessarily going to be easy. They're going to have to be convinced, and they're going to want to be paid. There's next to no chance they'll accept a cut of the profit on its own; they have their own bills to pay and can't be sure any video will do well. Plus, unscrupulous people would just use it as a way to get cheap sex. No, they're going to either want a good pay up-front, or a split of pay and royalties.
Established actresses are likely to be out of your bracket as a result. They're already in the industry, have good contacts, have their preferred studios, and they'll demand big money to work with an amateur like you. It's going to have to be newbies. That's fine. They'll charge less anyway. The only problem will be finding them.
The most obvious solution would be to post some job ads in the local newspapers or online, but a quick search reveals that's an expensive option. They charge for a full month period, and while that will be good coverage, you'll be paying 4,000 lien per month for it, and there's no telling the quality or quantity of people you'll get through. It's quite frankly out of your budget for now, and you can't afford to sit around for 3 or 4 weeks waiting for applicants.
You need immediate results.
Businesses existed before newspapers and the internet though, and they did just fine. You can too. The trick will be going out and sourcing your own employees. Sure, most women don't walk around with signs reading "will do porn" on them, but you can always take a risk and ask. The worst is they say no.
Or punch you.
Still, if you can ask 1,000 people then you're bound to find at least one who'll do it.
It's a numbers game.
And, frankly, the most obvious way to cheat that numbers game is to hire a prostitute. Even if you chose not to enter that industry yet, others have, and a working girl won’t have any qualms putting out if you pay her enough. They'll probably charge more once they know it's for a video, seeing as how they know you'll be making money off them, but at least you know they'll be confident in the role. And, of course, they'll only ask extra if they know you're making a video off them. It's a risk, but you could lie. In terms of price, you have no idea. A cheap whore will have cheap prices, and the opposite for a high-class one, and it's in the air how much they'd charge extra to be recorded doing it. There are plenty of prostitutes in Vale however, so you'd have a range to pick from, and you can always get their prices in advance.
Trawling the local clubs and bars might be a good way to find women who are confident and up for a little fun. They're not necessarily going to be interested, but at least they'll be drunk enough to laugh you off rather than beat you senseless, and it'll be a good way to ask a lot of people in a short time. If they're going out, on the other hand, then they must have some money, so they won't be very desperate girls. That means they'll probably have higher demands. It'll also cost some money, since you'll need to buy into every club and probably buy girls some drinks to have them hear you out. You reckon it'd be about 400 lien. Not too much, but still more than the other options.
A little more desperate will be those at the local job centre. The government building basically connects jobseekers with jobs – simple enough – but it's typically the place where the low-end of people go. It's the people with limited skills who can't find decent work through the newspaper ads, or who keep failing at interviews. That's not such a huge problem when your only requirements are a good body and a pretty face, and they're more likely to listen if they're struggling to find work. You might be able to pay them less, too. The big advantage is knowing that every single person there is looking for work, so there won't be any wasted time.
You could also trawl the streets and look for the truly down and out people. It's disgusting, and more than a little cruel, but every city has a homeless community who you know will do anything for food. Would you be exploiting them? In a sense. But, on the other hand, you would actually be giving one of them a chance to earn money and drag themselves out of that hole. You're certainly not going to find the next superstar of porn there, but you'll definitely find someone with very low demands. And, really, you're effectively homeless as well, aren't you? If nothing else, someone you pick up from this life is bound to hold a lot of loyalty for you. They'll go further, and do more, and not take work elsewhere just because it pays a little bit more.
The final choice you can think of is the slave markets. You decided not to enter that career path for now, but that doesn’t mean it's closed off. Buying a slave's contract would be the same as hiring an employee, except that the cost is up-front instead of monthly. You're unlikely to be able to afford anyone too special, but there are always less appreciated stock going, and if you can find a bargain then you'll have an actress who'll agree to just about anything, and who won't even demand a cut of the profits. You won't even need to waste time training them either, since you wouldn't be looking to sell them on, and there'd be no risk of them leaving you for a better paying studio once they got more popular.
Either way, you know you need to go buy a camera and register your studio for tax at the city hall. At least making an account on a porn site is free. They'll give you a tiny cut for your views, but the real money will be in the fact that people can pay a monthly fee to subscribe to you and get your content ahead of time, and see full-length videos as opposed to free teasers.
The money isn't likely to start off good – in fact, you might start at a loss – but it can grow, and that's the real money-maker. Build up fans over time, get them paying for subscriptions, and soon you might have a reliable and healthy source of income. Enough to expand to a studio, pick up some additional actresses (and actors) and start churning out content on an industrial scale.
But that's for the future.
You have 7,600 lien, a camera, and an idea.
Time to make that a reality.
Signing up at city hall is a mostly painless affair.
The bureaucracy is one of the few things that runs well in Vale, but then when you're taxing the mega-rich and famous then you can afford to run a good office. You have to sign down your real name and ID for tax purposes, but that doesn't mean you have to advertise it anywhere else.
To a select few in Vale's highest governmental offices, you might be Rufus Goldmane, but to everyone else you're… Joker.
It is, you have to admit, a somewhat silly name. That's part of its charm. No one is going to equate the missing scion of a once-wealthy family in Atlas to some porn studio producer in Vale going by the name of "Joker".
Everyone in the adult industry goes with fake names anyway.
At least yours isn't "Ben Dover".
It's early afternoon and the city is just entering that transitional period where businesses close down and people are on their way home. There are crowds travelling here and there, and people waiting for buses at stops in the road, while men and women in fancier suits call down cabs. In an hour or two, they'll be out in casual wear eating at restaurants or shopping, but, for now, everyone is in a rush to get home, have a shower, and put their feet up.
>Make contact with the homeless
>Go to the job centre and look for pretty unemployed girls
>Look through bars and clubs for girls willing to star
You wish you could do the same but there's work yet to be done. You spent most of the walk here trying to decide how best to go about finding your first talent, knowing the decision would be almost as important as which business to open. Good talent will bring money, but a dud will sink you, and while you absolutely can afford to have a few shots at a video, the more expensive the actress, the less shots you'll get.
That's why you ruled out talking to a prostitute. There's no doubt in your mind that they'll be able to perform well under pressure, but the same can't be said for you, and no matter how good they are, you still have no loyal customers online yet. Spending the big bucks on someone early might be a good kickstart, but it's also risky, and you're not keen on that when failure means being relegated to a life in the mines.
In a sense, that's also why you decided to pass on clubbing. It'd definitely be a good way to meet women, but it would take hours, and there's no guarantee anyone would be up for it. Not to mention they might agree while drunk and then ghost you in the morning once the booze wore off. Frankly, you need someone inexpensive. You need someone who needs this just as much as you do.
And if you're already leaning toward that then why not go the whole way?
More genteel folk might have raised their nose or expressed shock and horror at the thought of exploiting a homeless person, but those same people don't know how hard life can really be. Besides, it's not like ignoring the homeless is any more charitable. Teach a man to fish, and all that. Or, in this case, teach a woman to pose for the camera.
You ask around for a bit, and while people are a little creeped out at you asking where all the homeless are, you wave it off by saying you're feeling charitable. It turns out that there are a few homeless shelters, but that a lot of them instead congregate around the busier parts of town, begging for money from commuters. Those at the shelters won't need shelter, and that's a bargaining tool you have, so you decide to instead follow the pointed fingers toward where a lot of them apparently congregate.
You find them all too easily.
Vale is a beautiful city, and yet much of that is because of the vast gaps in wealth between the few and the many. Huge skyscrapers and buildings made of glass fight for dominance and to be the tallest, most expensive, or most exclusive, while men and women in ratty clothing huddle at the base with hands held out, asking for spare change from an army of blind commuters coming and going.
Every once in a while, one of them will make eye contact, grimace as the guilt takes hold, then mumble something half-heartedly as they offer all the change they have in their wallet or purse. Immediately, others start begging to the same person, sensing a rare weakness, and the man or woman is sent scurrying away shouting that they don’t have any money left to give.
It's a nasty scene.
You have to wonder why they don't give up and accept a life in the mines at this point. It's horrible, that's for sure, but at least you'd be fed and looked after there. You're sure they have their reasons, but you can't fathom what those are. Helplessness, most likely. In Atlas, the government came up with a drive to "get all the homeless people back to work" that sounded a lot more charitable on paper than it actually was. The police stalked through Atlas, rounded them up, and then shipped them off to SDC mines like cattle.
Out of sight, out of mind.
You know you'll be torn apart if you show any willingness to give out money as well, and you can't afford to. You're better off than these people only by virtue of the clothes on your back and a fast-dwindling bank balance, and they'll bleed you dry if they get the chance. Everyone has to look out for themselves, these people most of all, and in a world where 99% of people will walk on by without giving you the time of day, you soon learn to throw away kindness and pounce on the 1% who will.
It's like a crab bucket, you think, as you watch six homeless men harass a woman who tried to give to a homeless girl nearby. They cry out to her, reach out, trying to guilt her into giving more, even saying they'll walk to the bank with her. The woman is understandably afraid and jogs away as other commuters shake their heads and silently decide they'll never give money to these "greedy" beggars. The girl who received the money is quickly set upon and badgered by her "friends", until she's forced to share the money she so desperately needs to avoid things getting ugly.
They're dragging each other down in their efforts to escape poverty.
Talking to any of them here won't work. The others will jump on you, and they'll try and wring money out of you. Some might even be desperate enough to take matters into their own hands and mug you. You move on instead, knowing that while this is the busiest begging spot, it won't be the only one. The "prime" space, as it were, is taken by those who can hold it. Not everyone gets that chance.
Sure enough, you find that the number of beggars starts to lessen as you enter less populated areas. These spots aren’t as favoured because of the lack of foot traffic, but the ones there don't have much of a choice. They're either too weak to fight for the good spots, or too trodden down to try. It's no doubt the same for sleeping spots under bridges and on benches, compared to those forced to huddle in small alcoves or uncomfortable nooks and crannies.
You feel like a creep looking over them, especially when you're judging their worth like cattle.
Too old, too few teeth, too worn down, too ugly. None of it is their fault, but it's not your fault either, and you don't have the money to run a charity. Maybe later, if you ever get on your feet, but for now you need someone to make money off, and that means being discerning. That doesn't make it feel any better.
Sadly, there isn't a lot to pick from.
A life on the streets isn't kind and the scars of it show even when they're not physical. Eyes are sunken, teeth are blackened, and skin hangs from people like parchment. You begin to wonder if you'll find anyone suitable to star in a video at all.
And then you see her.
Author's Note:
Original Quest: https://fiction.live/stories/Running-the-Red-Light/z3DQkYE5X8YBXovZ8/home
Visual Novel: https://andoravn.itch.io/running-the-red-light