Five Step Program (Patreon)

This is the kind of story that is easy to write once you have established the parameters. The protagonist wanted the transformation, at least to the degree he ordered the apparent scam product in the first place. Once he discovers it actually works he is enthusiastic about the product, and the changes themselves cloud his judgment along the way. The company itself acts dishonest with how they withhold information, end result, and pricing, but their motivations aren't a mystery either.

Since I tend to want to have someone disappointed at the end of the story (and arguably that could include the reader) I wanted the last step for the protagonist to be some dumbing down. Originally that was from a hat or a beanie, then I was thinking of going with a full sports outfit. I've just done that in wrapped, so that felt tired, but also it takes a lot of text to describe and it complicates the whole Jock Express service. A hoodie was a reasonable way of doing both arms and head in one item.

There was a lot of throwing things at the wall and fix them later here. I think I just wrote the first paragraph before I decided on Five Step Program as the title, having no idea what the different steps should be. I just threw in Tuesday as the first day, without thinking it through. These two combined made me add the entire weekend to the text.

Unlike most of the stories I didn't add a photo to this one to illustrate it. I felt like basically any jock photo would work. You could even go and hunt for a before and after for someone who had spent some good time in a gym, but I wanted to give some room for people to come up with their own idea of what he looked like before and after. However, in some discussions I've had I pulled a recent photo from my tumblr stream and posted as a suggestion.