icebear
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Commission: "Rejection - A Tale of Losers"
🕑 Added 2022-12-18 14:10:56 +0000 UTCThis one has been a while in the making, but it's finally here. The commissioner had this idea cooking for a good long while before they won the drawing, and then it took me months to get the words down. And this is just the first installment! I don't always go for commissions of this scope, but if I'm having fun with it, I figure, why not, right?
So we have another story set in the Losers universe. It's pretty true to the original style and tone, so if that appealed to you, hopefully this will, too. If you didn't read the original Losers, for one, you could do so! If you'd rather not, the tl;dr of it is that, a while back, massive calamity came about, brought on by overpopulation colliding with severe climate change inflicting drought and famine on a previously unforeseen scale. One of the solutions adopted to help solve the problem was the Lottery, in which all children are sterilized, and once a year, 18-year-old girls are bid on by 18-year-old boys. The boys get some tickets (in this story locale, 5 per boy), and they can choose which girl's "pot" to put them in, along with a description of what new personality the boy (the "winner") wishes to imprint upon the girl (the "loser"). Some sci-fi-esque physical augmentation is also possible, including rendering the couple capable of bearing offspring. In the US, where this story is set, each girl's pot has a single ticket drawn the Friday before spring break on Drawing Day. The girls go to school as themselves, and go home losers.
This story focuses around an ultra-wealthy family, the Kountzes, and plays with how, as ever, the rich manage to game the system. (Or do they...?!) It's got more sad and sexy and sad-sexy asides, more lore, and of course, it's got more losers. This is a pretty big one, lots of exposition, so if you're here for the steam, be ready to skim a bit, but it's there. A work of this scope takes some time, of course, but when part 2 comes out, we'll be in the thick of it already.
I've got a Toy's Toy chapter 6 already started and on its way soon, so that ought to be fun, and I've been on a freaking tear with The RA volume 2. Better yet, I think it's coming out really good, too. I knew (and forewarned!) that volume 1 was a slow burn, introducing our cast and setting and watching the embers start to smolder, but volume 2 is catching fire, big time. I may even get it done in time before my holiday travels, but if not, expect that will come out very early 2023.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend, everybody! More to come.
Comments
Ice Bear
Yeah, this has the same kind of sadness in it, but it's not as helpless and downward-spirally about it. There's there's definitely a lot more to tell, but since I took on this commission in August and I had 20,000 words done, I wanted to at least have something delivered. (Especially since I tend to stick to a project better once I have something out there.) As far as the programming goes, I think you're right that there is such an opportunity, though I don't believe I ever formally codified it. My sense is that it would be kind of a check-in at long intervals, 5 or maybe even 10 years, to see if the winners want to reverse the sterilization or the like, but certainly no popping down to the Lottery office month to month to vary things up. Misty, for the foreseeable future, is stuck like this.
ZeroCross
I like it a lot. I dreaded reading it because Losers was rough to read at times, but this was good. In fact, my sole criticism is that it stops where it gets interesting. Warning: Spoilers below. I liked the characters, at least Evie and Sunny. I think they were interesting, that there is some depth to them. I'd love to see it explored further, especially when Misty gets added to the dynamic. I'd love to read about how Sunny navigates this. There's probably an interesting contrast to explore in how he addresses the same fetish with Misty and Evie, since he obviously feel differently about either of them. Quick question: My understanding was that the programming could he changed, in Losers. Did I misunderstand or is there some nuance here?
Irregular Apocalypse
Losers is my favorite of your long running series and this does nothing but cement that place in my head. Already enjoying it immensely.
Ice Bear
Less sad than Chanda. Without spoiling, this one calls for substantially less empathy, and has a lot more punching up.
ZeroCross
How sad are we talking about here? Chandra's struggles were a little hard to read at time.
