I'll Show You

 Everyone needs someone to believe in them.

So this is cap I made for Greatgooglymoogly over at the Haven.  Two things came to mind when I tried to make this cap... I wanted to make it a series as that's in Googs' preferences, and I also wanted to make it sweet.  I don't know why that second part was important to me, but it was.

Yesterday I felt ready to cap, but while I found a lot of images that were nice, I didn't find any that told me a story worth telling.   I finally gave it up and moved on to other things.  This morning I had that same itch, so I started in the same way... looking for images.  At the same time I was chatting via IM with both Britney and Smitty.  I believe it's though those chats that the idea for this series of caps came up.  Britney does a great job of making more emotional and sweet caps, while smitty recently made a couple longer series for me using the Kinetic text style.

So when I came across these images I saw that there was enough to work in that style.  And more importantly they told me a good story that fit right in with another of Googs' preferences:

The central theme I like most is with an accepting girlfriend/wife

What I saw in these images was not only that acceptance... but the girlfriend convincing her boyfriend (now girlfriend  that she still loved him/her.

Now the first time I did one of these Kinetic text caps, I made it from the beginning to the end without any thought of the story arc.  I just put the text in the first panel that seemed to fit, then followed it with text that worked from the first panel, and fit the second panel.  On and on.  The story went off in a direction that I hadn't intended (although I was happy with).

The second cap I had a very vague premise (getting revenge for someone hurting/killing his girlfriend/wife).  As I wrote each panel I tried to make it work toward the ultimate goal of them body swapping.  I don't believe it was nearly as successful as it just didn't have that spontaneity that the first try had.  I was still happy with it, but felt it was a shadow of what I wanted to accomplish.

And finally on my third attempt, I wrote the story out completely.  This made it more difficult to fit in where I wanted it to and required heavy editing to shoehorn parts of it in.  But the end result while not as visually impactful, was still better than the first two.

So this time around, I tried a different tact.  I sat back and though of the underlying story.  Here is more or less what I came up with:

A family carries a curse... most of the men in the family turn into a woman when they first fall into true love.   Nick's brother had gone through his change and had either lost his mind due to the drastic change, or even (in the darker parts of my mind) committed suicide.  When Nick felt the changes beginning in him, he holed up in his apartment and tried to keep everyone away.  His girlfriend gets in and helps him adjust to his new body.  By the time the change is complete, Nick is an emotional wreck, sure that his life is now over, only to have his girlfriend try her best to convince him that she still loves him.  That she loves 'her'.

Now none of this was set in stone... I didn't write anything out or even plan for the cap to include much if any of this background.  But having that as a stepping stone let me have a direction for the series to go in.  If it seemed appropriate at any time, I could add some of that back story in, but if it didn't come up I was hoping that cap would stand up on it's own.

I'm not 100% sure that I met that goal.  You see I wrote with all that background information in my head.... and when I finished I realized that I more or less mentioned it... but didn't explain it.  I'm specifically talking about the seventh panel (the one that starts with "When this happened to your sister...".  I knew what I was talking about, but I'm not sure that I gave enough information for everyone else to follow along.  For them to know that.  At the same time, I felt that section added a little more emotional impact.  I could have simply taken that panel out, but I decided to leave it in.  If it works, I may try that again... if it doesn't... well... it's still pretty!

At this time, I think the series is a success.  I have my normal insecurities since I'm writing a sweet emotional story and don't feel that I do it well, but for what I have produced in this vein in the past, I think it holds up well enough.

Oh.. and as a little aside... if I were to put this to music like I did the first Kinetic text cap, I would have put this to Eva Cassidy's version of 'True Colors'.  The singing lyrics may have gotten in the way, but the sad/happy emotions that the song evokes is exactly what I think would match up well: