Hidden In Plain Sight

Where better to hide someone?

This was a fun image to cap that went through several different forms.  I initially found the below image when I wanted to write something up quick for Tumblr.  You see, I try to post every other day there whether it's new content or a reblog of one of my old posts.  

As it had been two days and I didn't really want to reblog something old, I glanced at my feed to see if an image would inspire a story.  I'm also trying to work on the next part of Gamer Gurl, so I didn't want to get bogged down in a longer mini story.  When I saw this image, I was reminded of Gamer Gurl and focused on her kind of blank stare and the 'Daddy' collar she had one.  

The first thing to come to mind was having her speak to her 'daddy'.  It'd be all from her perspective, as she tries to answer his questions and please him as his subby girly girl.  As she answered questions about "Daddy's ex-girlfriend" and "Daddy's old friend" it would become more and more clear that 'Daddy' had found his old friend cheating on him with his girlfriend and then punished the friend by transforming him into "Daddy's Little Girl".  She'd kind of start to realize it, and then Daddy would give her an iphone with 'pretty colors' and she'd fall under his spell again.   

It was vague enough that I could have fun with it, but it also felt like it could easily go long.  I mean, I'd have to establish four characters and then later reveal that two of them, Daddy's Little Girl and the Old Friend, were the same person.  And I'd have to do all of that from a one sided conversation.  It'd be easier if I had both sides of the conversation, but then it would also be twice as long.  

BUT... I wanted to give it a try.  As soon as I got setup though, another idea hit me.  I've done a couple witness protection style caps/stories before, but what if I leaned into it in a different direction.  Two agents of the US Marshal Service trying to one up each other in 'hiding' a protectee by feminizing him.  One would say longer hair, one would say corsets, one would say breasts, one would increase the size of breasts, one would have voice coaches, one would put 'her' online as an influencer, one would give her a fake boyfriend, one would make the boyfriend real.... on and on.  

When I started writing it though, it came out different... a little discombobulated.  Here's my first pass at it:

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Being in witness protection sounded easy.  I just had to wait for the trail so I could point out that I’d seen the gangster gun down the police officer and I’d be free.  But in the meantime, I had to hide and US Marshal’s service said it was best to hide in plain sight.  I had two deputies running my protection detail.  Deputy Marshal Robin Smith hated men and loved to do anything to ‘put us in our place’.  It was her idea to hide me as a girly girl streamer.  Sadly, I had the body for it and under baggy clothes, wearing a wig and makeup, and speaking in a valley girl falsetto, I fit the bill.  Deputy Marshal August Marlon ran the day to day operation and seemed almost upset at me for agreeing to hide out as a woman.  He made it his job, however, to ensure I not only could hide out as my femme alter ego, that I could fool everybody around me.  Including him.  

Robin was the first to suggest that we spend some cash on my surroundings.  Plush animals, programable LEDs that could light up in pinks and purples, and even big fuzzy pillows.  August took it a step further and removed all the baggy clothes, leaving me nothing but pink shorts, crop tops, girly tennies, and jewelry.  When Deputy Smith saw me she laughed and said I’d need a lot of work to fill out my clothes.  I thought she meant exercise, but when I saw she was signing me up for cosmetic surgery I tried to put my foot down.  She overpowered me, threatening that I’d either agree to it or get tossed out, so I went to Deputy Marlon.  He not only agreed with Deputy Smith, he upped it.  He took her order of B cup breast implants and upped them to D cups.  He added liposuction to reduce my waist and injecting all the fat into my ass.  When I went under I heard them arguing what to do with my lips so I wasn’t’ surprised to find out they’d been plumped up as well.  

It was Robin that told me the court case was being delayed, so we moved.  To save time they moved me in with another witness protection subject, Reggie Toward.  I don’t know what Reggie did to be under witness protection, but he was similar to me in that he was hiding in plain sight.  His face was changed, he’d been pumped up with steroids to be a hulking man, and was online all the time as a fitness influencer.  I guess my protection was working as Reggie didn’t even recognize me as a man until after he pulled me into one of his online chats and felt me up in front of the camera.  He was grossed out by the fact that I was a guy, but knew he had no choice but to continue our ‘relationship’ online.  

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It certainly wasn't cohesive and it was getting long for me to not know where it would end up.  So, instead of trying to fix it, I went another direction and started over.  Instead of having two Marshals trying to one up each other, I'd have one decide to feminize the protectee while the other was the actual onsite protector.  He wouldn't like protecting a 'guy dressed up as a girl' so he'd force her to be girlier and girlier.  That story worked better for me and led into the actual cap.  

Design wise, I was kind of stuck as I'd written about 70% more than I'd intended.  But I liked it so I didn't want to cut anything away.  I looked at my last few caps and decided to work it as a variation of 'Social Media'.  As the original image was big enough, I went so far as to open up the photoshop file of Social Media and just start replacing parts.  I cropped the original image down to be tall and thin, put it in, and gave it my old school tilt.  After deleting the social media photo and graphics, I then copied the text over the social media text and edited it until it fit.  I had to make the text take up more vertical space, so I centered the text box up and then put the title in the lower left corner as it would visually balance out nicely there.  I then found an abstract background that was blue and pink and threw it behind the text box, title, and image.  Finally, I added in my watermark and boom.... new cap is done.  

Like most of my new work, I'm fairly meh on it.  It's not great, but it's fine and it was fun to stretch these muscles again.  Hope you like it!