Losers (Patreon)

Holy freaking crap, folks. Like I said in my last post, I got an idea, and I was grateful to have the permission of the January commission winner to go crazy with it. When I thought "go crazy with it," I definitely did not think this would balloon like it did. Here, after weeks of tinkering (and a few days for the nice fellow who first inspired the idea to read it), is the result. It's a whopper of a production, at around 28,000 words (60 pages in pdf format), so  really closer to a novella than a short story. There are section breaks periodically, so try to come up for air when you can.

Before you get going, I feel like I should include some kind of trigger warning here. This is some very heavy subject matter and it's handled for the most part for what it is. A Master PC turn-the-girl-into-a-hot-bimbo-and-use-her-teehee story this is not. I'll spell out some of the premise below, for those who want a little on what they're getting into, but for those who prefer to simply dive in, that's your heads up.

I honestly don't know if I'm done or what else I'll do with this. I think there are some pretty obvious leads, but maybe it's best they not be explored? I don't know. But I think I'm pretty interested in more Chanda (our protagonist), so don't be surprised if I do more. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments or on the Community page.

For those of you who do want to know a little more before you start, Losers is about an alternate world in which everyone is rendered sterile to help reduce climate change by forcibly minimizing mankind's carbon footprint. Breeding is only enabled by a system called the Lottery in which once a year, all the young women who turned 18 in the past twelve months have a pot, and all the men who turned 18 in that same time get to put "seed" their pots with tickets. Tickets can likewise be purchased by members of the community on a limited basis. If a man's ticket is drawn, he wins that woman, simple as that. Her brain is rewired to turn her into whatever he wants, and for a period of thirty years she occupies that role. When and if the man wishes, he and his prize can be rendered capable of having children for up until the woman turns 30, allowing her time to raise any children to the age of 18 before she is released from his service. Naturally, since some women won't be bid on, and many men won't have any tickets drawn, this is a big drop in the breeding population. (Statisticians, feel free to reprimand me for not fully thinking through just how much of an impact this would make, as I suspect it's likely pretty huge.)

By the time our story begins, the system has been in place for more than a decade, so the narrator, one of the young women about to participate, has grown up with the Lottery as a looming reality for her and her classmates. They've grown up knowing that one day, their male classmates will bid on them, win them, and effectively enslave them for a huge portion of their lives. The young men have grown up knowing that one day, the most seemingly unobtainable woman they've ever met could be theirs. There's luck, there's strategies, there's unintended consequences and corruption and drama. If you can swallow the concept, the story tries to approach this as realistically as possible, and for obvious reasons, it's got some rough psychological stuff. But for my money, I really enjoyed playing with the concept.

In the meantime, thanks for being patient with me while I sorted this out everybody, and enjoy!