I could use more detail on "fetishizing" your character.  I think I have some intuitive grasp of what it means but I'm not sure.  The example given in the text involves a character's literal "fetish," brutal masochism, but I suspect that that's almost coincidental -- fetishizing your character means exploring/exploiting the sheer exotic freakishness of their lives in your description -- something like that?

Hey Ed,

A good question. The hardest stuff for me to be clear about in a game text is the stuff that's clearest in my own head. (Intimacy, Desperation, and Sincerity were like that when I was writing My Life with Master.)

Fetishizing in Acts of Evil is revealing something the character has consciously and willfully done to exoticize himself. So, shockingly unusual make-up, offensive or transgressive apparel, extreme piercings, elaborate tattoos, the barely concealed scars of suicide attempts, artificially over-whitened teeth, and excessive or unsettling cosmetic surgeries, but also unusual physical or verbal mannerisms, and ritualized behaviors that help the character control his doubts or push the limits of his humanity, his conscience, or his sensations. It can, but need not be, something apparent or noticed by any other character in the game. What's important is the character is sending a message to self that he is something other than weak, something other than human. Players are advised to start gradually, because you only get future bonus dice by Fetishizing something more extreme than what you've done before. So, don't have your character's very first scene be him starting his day by drinking from his bedridden mother's colostomy bag. You're going to struggle to top that.

Paul