Random Story Idea (Patreon)

I ranted in a blog earlier today about how Clouded Soul was making me depressed because we're still in the setup and tragedy prologue and it's getting pretty tiresome writing *and then things get worse and the little boy loses even more of his hope* for 30 straight chapters. I'm proud of the results, but I'm already having unstable moods lately and writing sad shit isn't really conducive to that. I mentioned that my only way out is to grind the rest of the prologue out, but that creates a negative feedback loop and isn't possible atm.

I also mentioned if it got worse I might need to divert some brain power away to something fun and lighthearted. I didn't plan on actually coming up with anything but it sort of happened and so I wanted to document the brief story pitch. I've had a really bad year with starting and stopping projects so I don't wanna go out on a limb and develop it a ton more than this but I wanted to write the basics while it was still fresh in my mind.

Yes it's partially inspired by the recent addiction mentioned in that same blog. Also somewhat inspired by the Affection Multiplier CHYOA format and Undead Unluck, of all things. Gamelit sells.

---

Setting is the real world (making koikatsu character designs viable, yay), some fictional city of decent size. The main character is a 22 y/o loser weeb living in a shitty apartment complex. No aspirations, no college experience. Has a dead end job at a small grocery store, where there are three important coworker girls. For brevity, these are Nerd, Bitch, and Boss. He's average build, nothing special looks wise. Had a very brief incel-phase post high school that he's very ashamed of.

His biggest hobby is playing dating sims, but he's ashamed of that, too. Knows it's shallow and probably says something about himself that he like collecting virtual women but it offers a level of comfort and companionship that he can't find elsewhere.

After a day at work where Boss and Bitch are really rude to him and Nerd is seemingly really cold, he goes for the ultimate destress technique he has- getting high on an edible and gooning for 8 hours on a new hentai dating sim. Eventually the rapid fire stimulus triggers his head to start hurting and his brain ascends to the next level of consciousness as he blacks out.

He unknowingly becomes a reality bender with dating sim themed powers.

When he awakens the next day he's deeply ashamed of himself like always, but nothing seems to be different at first. There might be a couple little things here and there in his morning routine, like his charm stat chiming as he showers or something, but the big moment is when he opens his car door and a popup world map asks him where he wants to go. Clicking on work would warp him there as if he'd driven there but no time passes. Obviously he freaks the fuck out at this but rationalizes it as driving in a fugue state. That's not healthy but it's the only explanation he has. Contemplates going home but running into Bitch in the parking lot makes it worse.

He sees a full on dating sim info box next to her while she talks to him. Affection points are at -50 to the next 'heart event', they rise to -49 when she mentions at least he brushed his hair for once. Asking her about it would trigger a popup tip saying that some girls care about his charm stat more than others and to check stats and other useful info he should say open menu. He does and freaks out at the interface, causing Bitch to dislike him even more.

He rushes into the bathroom to sort all of this out and looks at the menu. There are buttons like Status, Heroines, Perks, etc, all of it in a cutesy dating sim theme. He's firmly believing that the edible was way more than he bargained for and thinks himself to still be drugged as fuck. He's already at work though and Boss will kill him if he tries to go home after he just got here so he forces himself to work.

Nerd, a soft spoken, hoodie, kuudere type girl surprises him by showing some concern for him and her affection is weirdly at 60% to next 'heart event' despite no idea why it would be so. Boss is also at -100 and has Manhater listed as a trait which explains some things, and he tries to go through work only to be met with two popup options. 'Work Hard' or 'Manual'. Out of curiosity he clicks work hard and blanks out to the end of his shift 8 hours later, where Boss pulls him aside and compliments him on his work, gaining a single affection point. She then pays him his daily wages and he's like what the fuck what about my paycheck and it's a foreign concept because in dating sims you get money the day you work, that's just how reality works for him now.

He heads home via his now warping car and is now having an existential crisis. He just lost 8 hours of his life. 8 shitty hours of shitty work, but still. At least there was no commute.

He tries to figure this out but another popup tip recommends if he's having a tough time and needs guidance than he should go into the perk menu and purchase the 'Bradley' perk. It's described as 'your best pal'. He has a few hundred points as a starting gift and Bradley costs 100, and upon doing so there's a knocking on his door. MC opens it and finds an unsettling attractive guy who almost looks like a Ken doll animatronic and who speaks in an artificial, robotic tone.

Based loosely off this comedian I discovered recently.

Bradley insists they have been best friends since grade school and the MC goes through some old photos on social media, seeing how there are tons of evidence to prove it. Bradley is essentially the obligatory male best friend in every dating sim who is weirdly omniscient, has no concerns for anything but the main character, and can provide advice about the girls he's interested in. He's the gag character from Nozaki-kun to an even more exaggerated level, just being a fake person on every level.

Bradley indeed breaks down the MC's new situation for him, explaining how he is the protagonist and the world is now his dating sim. Some rules are established. MC gets points to unlock perks by achieving heart events, going on dates, and accomplishing hidden achievements. Perks can also be bought for other people, not just him. There is some dark stuff available in the menu when he looks, stuff to make girls more submissive and stuff, but the MC is firmly against that kind of thing. To be fair it's kind of hand waived because the perk list is as big as a phonebook and for every creepy thing there's something useless like 'immunity to hyena bites' or something weird like that.

He doesn't think he has any right to exploit this system at all, honestly. Low self-esteem sees him thinking he has nothing to offer and he'd rather just go on with his life, but Bradley convinces him to try talking with Nerd because she already likes him. Bradley proves his usefulness and gives him so details about her, reminding MC that 'they' went to high school with her which is news to MC.

He's able to build up a bond with her to get her to the first heart event which confirms this and reminds him of an event where he stood up for her and inspired her to have a crush on him. It was a big thing he regrets since it made him the target instead. Bitch also went to HS with them and was a bully because I have a type.

Against Bradley's advice he ends up telling Nerd about his whole dating sim powers very early on which they then test out together buy buying her a perk or something. She'd help him come to term with things and help him realize these powers can actually be an amazing thing if he uses it to help the girls who qualify as 'Heroines'. She volunteers to be his tutorial girl and help him figure it all out.

Overall, the story would be about about self-growth, developing self-worth, improving himself and not strictly about living a hedonistic dating sim fantasy. If a girl is labled as a Heroine it's essentially a sign from the universe saying hey you can help this girl have a better life. As MC develops he'd find joy in helping others even outside his Heroines, becoming a well-rounded adult who tries to better everyone around him.

It would also comment on the addictive nature of dating sims and the gamification of relationships, but that's why the brief incel phase is integral to his character. He already used to be stupidly misogynistic and doesn't want to be that way ever again, which adds to his hesitation to using these powers at first until his work on Nerd girl starts bearing fruit through perks he gets her and only then would MC see how getting involved with others and helping them with their issues and their dreams makes him happy.

There'd still be one major perk he needs to get for plot reasons that would have to be treated delicately, 'Normalize Bigamy' or however you want to put it. Basically just adds a rule onto reality that it's normal for him to have multiple GFs just so he's not creeping around doing this to multiple girls, and Nerd would help him justify it as him opening up more avenues to help others. The obvious benefits he receives from it being framed as a nice bonus and not something he UOHHHHs over.

A few other random ideas I have that don't fit in anywhere would be that Bradley can be leveled up to provide further wingman support, one of MC's earliest perks will be Lucky (not Lucky Pervert, which would be listed separately as a gag), Nerd is a lewd artist, Bitch has abusive parents, lives in the shadow of her older sister who is a model, Boss is triple divorced and is so fucking done with everything. Another funny power would be to get a conversational do-over once per day per heroine, like if he says something really stupid he can go back to right before saying it and say something else like you can do in some Renpy visual novels.

Also Bradley is a mnemonic entity created by MC's psychic powers. He's not a cosmic horror or anything but his existence fucks with reality similarly to that one episode of Rick and Morty or a few famous SCPs where everyone inexplicably thinks this guy has always been around and has positive opinions of him even after MC explains no Bradley is a pretty new thing and didn't actually exist until last tuesday.

Also also, might be funny if MC’s skills (Charm, Strength, Wisdom, etc?) were personified ala Disco Elysium and could also give advice. Random idea because Urban just sent me a DE meme while writing the end of this document.