The Best Laid Plans...

...of men and sexy dominating gender changes!

So for the past few weeks I've been feeling excited and nervous in equal measure.  I was coming up to the end of my cap debt, and I knew that it would mean stopping my cap trading at least temporarily (more on that part later).

The last person on my list was the wonderful and yet mysterious Alectra.  I know we've talked about her preferences, and I've even made her several caps that matched them... but I still find it a little hard to get my head around.  I guess its manly because I picture getting transformed into a woman with a little more humiliation.  I can add that humiliation to most peoples preferences in small doses, and I think it makes both them and me feel good.  But Alectra's preferences direct her into becoming a dominant woman.  And that's where it comes off the rails for me.

But... I always try to find a way.  Over the last few caps I've made for Alectra I've learned that she likes stockings as much as I do, and likes latex a lot.  And latex stockings?  Well it seems to send her over the moon.  So I started my image search there, looking for a woman wearing latex stockings.  And the image that I found really caught my attention:

Take out the stiletto heels, and the latex outfit, and you still have an amazing photograph.  The perspective alone blows me away.  I didn't have any real idea of what the story would be, but I just knew I had to cap this image.  I opened up the image in Photoshop and stared at it for about 20 minutes... but still no story idea came. So I tired to come at this from a different direction.. I opened up word and wrote out some bare bone ideas that could be bent to this image.

• friend convinces pablo to dress in a latex dress (why?)
• girlfriend wants to take advantage, and slips in (magic/tech?) to make change permanent
• slipping into bath makes it permanent (final part of spell/curse or shorts out tech)

I liked the way that story was going, so I kept plugging away.  I wanted to get to the 'why' his friend wants him in a latex dress, so I looked around for other women in latex dresses figuring it might spark a reason TO be in a latex dress.  One of the first images that came up was of Lady Gaga.  Now I'm not a fan of her music, but I remember that Alectra is into music.  And that brought the last piece in... dress up for a karaoke competition AS Lady Gaga, as a gag.  So I started writing furiously, hoping that the story's pieces would fall together to make something interesting.  I saved the various false starts:

Pablo's friend James convinced him to sign up for the Karaoke competition with a wild idea.  Dress up in a hot latex outfit, and sing Lady Gaga.  

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Hey baby, can you come see if I have this body suit on right?  

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When Pablo's friend convinced him to sign up for the Karaoke contest he figured it would just be some friends, some brews, and some really bad singing.  But that was before he found out 

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It took Pablo's friend nearly a week of constantly nagging him to enter the latex dress contest.  The final argument that won out was simple.  Women would have to look perfect to win... Pablo would have to be merely passable.  Not even passable... he would just have to NOT look silly.  With Pablo's naturally effeminate looks, he would be a shoe in to win.  Pablo bristled a bit at being called 'effeminate' but he couldn't argue.  With his long hair and thin arms, he probably COULD pass.  

Once Pablo accepted the challenge, he put all of his resources to that end.  He didn't want to look like a drag queen... he wanted to look good!  His first stop was his girlfriend, but she seemed almost distant as he talked about what he would need.  She merely nodded or mumbled a 'yea that should work' as he described his idea of tight latex stockings to cover his leg hair, a padded latex dress and corset combination to give him curves, a latex choker to hide his Adam's apple, and latex opera gloves to make his hands more feminine. 

With a plan of dress in place, Pablo planned to spend the next few days shopping for everything he needed.  But he was pleasantly surprised when his girlfriend woke him up with a bit smile and a pile of clothes for him to try.   She had gotten everything on his list, and even added some tall platform stiletto heels that would add to his curves. 

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The last bit was promising, but I just was losing interest in it myself.  And really if I'm bored with it, then how can I expect Alectra, or anyone else for that matter, to be happy with it?  

Since my original idea was a little convoluted in getting Pablo dressed and into the tub, I tried looking at the image again and explained what is going on:

• She has an almost happy look.
• She is fully dressed in a tub.  Did she get dressed, and then into the tub?
• Hmm... maybe the tub transformed her.....
• YES... the tub transformed her from a man, into a latex loving dominatrix.  

I liked the direction, and the thoughts started coming much faster now.  I firmly put my tongue in my cheek and started thinking about the 'Tub of Dreams'.  I figured Pablo had been searching for this magical and mysterious bathtub for years, but didn't really know what it did (which would save me the time and effort of explaining what it did, and allow for an 'oops' moment).  So he tracks down this tub, but thinks he needs a clear head, so he watches some porn.  Nah.. that doesn't work... he wants a clear head so he brings his girlfriend for that magical 'ah' post coitus clear headed moment.

AH HA!!!  And to get 'in the mood' he puts on some porn, and all he can find is latex bondage films!  But why would he only find that?  Most hotels have a good selection of porn available (don't ask how I know).  Ah yes.. its in a nasty hotel.  The porn isn't pay per view, its a channel... so you watch whats on, or watch nothing.  And naturally when I think nasty seedy hotels with bad porn selections I think of Cleveland (again... don't ask why).  

Now with Alectra being from Spain, I figured she may not know what Cleveland is, so I just changed that to New York City.  

At this point I hadn't written anything down, so I cleared a space in Word, and started writing.  And this time it came out fairly smoothly.  But every time I wrote 'Tub of Dreams' I felt it was out of place.  The story wasn't one of humor, and 'Tub of Dreams' was just giggle worthy.  At the same time I wanted to keep it in, as it was afterall the spark that gave me this story.  So I cheated... I used Google translate and came up with "La bañera de los sueños" which is Spanish for 'The Tub of Dreams".  I figured Alectra would be let inside of my little joke, while others would have to work for it (or read this write up). 

So with the story written I now moved on to design.  I wanted the image cropped down, but the angle of her legs made it a difficult crop.  My first attempt came out to this:

Not bad... but I still felt that there was a lot of extra space.  Not wanting to crop anything else out (I already felt that I had to much of the 'bottom' of the pic cropped out), I threw it into a blank canvas. When I added my standard 'tilt' to the image though, it struck me... I could crop it 'tilted' and then line it back up straight.  So the crop, when looked at on an even plane is like this:

This is an approximation, as I had to do it over... but you get the idea.  I was able to crop out some more of the empty space, and make it a narrower image.   It looked 'off' being tilted, but once it was in the blank canvas, I could just rotate it back to even.  The only problem is that with that much of a tilt, it left a VERY big empty space in the bottom left of the image.  I normally could put a line or so in the space as an extra zinger... but I would need to fit almost an entire paragraph there.  

Thankfully when I read over the story I had already written, I could easily add some to the ending to make it fit.  That's why I went a little adjective crazy... ''beautifully sexy body', 'deliciously dominant mind', and 'new devious domination techniques'.  They were all written on the fly with the paragraph at the bottom in an 18 font I had picked out.  Once that paragraph was in I just had to copy the rest of what I had written, and paste it into the top.  

Oh... and the background image I used this time was originally this:

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Now up at the top of this post, I wrote that making this cap would mean stopping my cap trading at least temporarily.  

I'm sure that anyone that reads these posts, knows that since around March, I haven't felt quite right about capping.  I've called it writers block for the most part... and it still may be that.  But no matter what the original 'problem' was... it hasn't fixed itself.  

You see I still have a hard time writing caps.  I was hoping that it was from being so far in debt, but I've been close to caught up for quite some time, and the feeling hasn't gone away.  And while I first thought it was writers block, that doesn't explain why I am also losing interest in reading other peoples caps.  

There was a time that I read almost every single cap on Rachel's haven.  I couldn't seem to get enough.  But that desire has slowly gone away.  For the past few weeks, I've read caps from several specific artists, but more because I felt close to the artist and wanted to keep up with their work.  And this was only on their blogs... I haven't read a cap on the Haven (beyond the ones created for me) in quite some time.  And even reading the caps I do... it still felt more like work than pleasure.  

I really hate to say that... and believe me, it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the caps themselves.  This is an internal problem.  I can really tell because its even made its way into my role playing over at DX.  I am just not interested in playing there anymore... and that hurts even more because my character is now teaching classes, so I feel obligated to keep it up.  

So after talking to several friends, I've decided to take a big step back from the Haven.  I'm stopping my cap trading until I can feel 'right' about what I'm doing.   I want to be happy making caps again... or at least try some things to see if they make me happy.  While I was in debt, I didn't feel right about experimenting... doing ultra short stories, or playing to much with design elements, as I don't think that's what people expected from me in a return cap.  

So now that I'm out of debt, I'm going to try experimenting more.  I will for the first time really be making caps without a specific target.  I may still go to the haven and look at preferences, as a lot of the time that helps spark... hmm.. if not an idea, it at least sparks a direction for me to go in.  I may also try what many people have suggested, and write caps for me.  

So the blog will continue to be updated.  And I will eventually return to the Haven.  If nothing else, making these caps gives the 'design' and 'Photoshop' side of my brain some exercise.  Even if I don't feel 'right' making caps, I like exercising that part of my brain.  

So... sorry for the big ol pity party, but I wanted to write this out and get my thoughts ordered.