More Than Skin Deep

Beauty is... but is sexuality?

So this cap came to me in several distinct steps.  For the most part when I cap, I find an image that inspires a story, flesh out the story a bit, write out the story, put it into a layout, add some design flairs, then post it.  It can go as quickly as 20 minutes, it can take several hours.  Rarely (but getting to be more and more common) I will find an image that inspires a basic story but fail at fleshing out the story.  When that happens I save the image back and a few hours or days later come back and can finish off the cap easily.

But this one... well it didn't work out anything like that.  I DID find the image several days ago and it whispered a basic story to me.  The basic story was a couple gets body swapped by an old witch and they struggle to accept their new roles.  I figured it would be a more tit for tat style story.... she'd talk about how much she missed giving him a blow job, and then he'd talk about how much he disliked giving her one.  He'd talk about how much he liked to bend her over and fuck her, and then she'd talk about how much she disliked doing that same act to 'him'.  Those were the two acts I saw in the images, but I figured it would be fun covering how they dressed (she hated wearing pants, he hated wearing stockings), their personal hygiene (she hated shaving her face, he hated shaving his legs), and other fun gender specific stuff (she hated having a gruff voice, he hated putting on makeup....).

But when I tried to write those ideas out in a story form, it just fell apart.  So I saved the image set back (you can see the entire set here), and tried other things.  I ended up making "we're all SLAVES to something", and the following day came back to this image set and idea.  The more I thought of the idea though, the less I liked it.  I might be able to make it fun and lighthearted, but if I missed that mark it would just end up being a bitchy 'I hate being a man', and 'I hate being a woman' cap.  Not fun, nor entertaining (beyond the obviously porntastic value).  So I thought a little more and thought of making it more like "All for you, my Love", where one panel tells a fairly straight forward story and the next makes it far more complicated.  I really liked the symmetry of that story and how each subject was working against their better judgement to what they thought the other wanted.  Unfortunately, the writing still just wouldn't come and I set it aside again.

The next day I made "There Is No Spoon" but since that took so much effort I figured there was no chance for me to sit down and write out this far more complicated story.  So I came back to it again the next day (yesterday now) and started writing.  I got the gist of the first panel down (Andi/Andrew talking about Jack/Jaqui), but when I tried to write the mirror side of it, it just fell apart.  Without having the third party influence (the 'friend' in "All for you, my Love"), I couldn't really believe that Jack would willingly submit to what he thought was Andi's desires.  So I again set it aside (and sadly forgot to even save that bit of writing).

This morning I vowed to either finish the cap, or post it up as a partial (that actually worked out well for "Sing Sing Sing" as it generated two collaborative caps). To give me some more incentive at finishing it, I decided that I would try and write this FOR someone.  The basic idea and/or images didn't really work for anyone that I had a cap debt to, so I ended up picking Sara (sarinedavis at the Haven)... more on that later.

I realized that there really wasn't a need for me to make the two panels mirror images.  Sure, I could throw in some of the same actions, but Jack didn't have to do everything FOR Andi.   In fact I think it kind of adds a squirm factor all it's own to see that Jack knows his actions are feminizing him, but still holds out hope to get back to 'normal'.

Instead of trying to re-write what I had previously, I more or less started over and let Andi be the foil for the story.  She would be the one to think that she's doing this because Jack wanted it.  When I finished a rough draft of the first panel, I then started in on the second panel and focused on a different reason for Jack doing what he did.  I kept going back and forth between the rough drafts until I was happy with the story.

I went ahead and threw it into a basic design and figured changing the colors up would be a nice subtle nod at the differences in the stories.  I liked it and figured it was ready to post.

At that point though, I started to second guess giving it to Sara.   I've prided myself on almost always making a cap specifically for someone.  Even if their preferences are broad and open (as Sara's are), I can pick out something that they mention, or focus in on something they've liked before... and then everything is made with them specifically in mind.  But this was different.. sure, there's nothing in this story that doesn't fit in with Sara's preferences.  But I had most of the story in my head before I even considered her as a recipient.  I didn't even edit the names.  Yes, Sara doesn't specify particular names in her preferences, but she does have 'Jay' as a chosen male name on her profile, and 'Sara' as her chosen female name.   And while the photo does have 'Jack' in a pair of stockings and that's mentioned as a preference to Sara, I did nothing to enhance that.

So I went back and forth for awhile weighing whether to just have this be a blog exclusive, or giving it to Sara for a trade.  In the end I kind of straddled the fence.   I posted it to Sara's trading folder as a 'gift' with the promise of hopefully soon making her something more personal.   I know, I know... I'm not great at accepting gifts myself and if someone did that to me I'd probably make a return cap myself.  I can just hope that Sara enjoys it, and can hold off on any type of return until I make one more specifically for her.

And of course I hope that you all enjoy this cap too.  I know I do.

And just in case you didn't see the previous post, I've had to re apply the captcha image to the comments section.  The spam bots hit me over 60 times in the last 24 hours.