Escape from D+X Institute - UnMasked

What do I think of this now?
Another two months, another post.  This time to select a cap to reflect upon, I went to Google Analytics and picked out the most popular cap.  Well... technically the second most popular cap.  The most popular actually is now "Learning to be a Real Man".  I guess that's what a two month stint on the top of the site gets.  Anywho, at just under 12,000 page views, this has been one of my most popular caps on the blog.

Here's the series:

A couple things to know about "Escape from D+X Institute".  First and foremost is that I wrote this while actively role playing at D+X.  Second, this was one of the first times utilizing this new layout.

As popular as the cap is, there wasn't but a couple comments to it.  So I'm not sure how well the story went over.  I'm not surprised at the lack of comments, as it was intended as 'one handed' reading.  Yes, I went right for 'hawt'.  But to get there with this new style I leaned heavily on the D+X story line... and that's why I'm not sure if it went over well.  I can see that I used a lot from that universe, but I'm thinking that it was all pretty straight forward.

Story wise... well it's a description of humiliating sex.  I think I tried to emphasize the 'humiliating' part too much.  I just re-read it and it feels very forced.  Not the content of the story... the writing.  I'm not showing you his humiliation as much as I'm telling you about it.  Maybe that's something that I improved with over time as I didn't notice that much in my other two 'UnMasked' series.  Both of those stories involved descriptive humiliating sexual situations but they came across as more squrimy.

Besides the cap being a method for me recalling the fun times at D+X, I have to call this story a failure.  It wouldn't work at all without the pictures... it reads like a high schooler wrote it.

Now design wise... well I think it held up just fine.  I can really see how I was experimenting with the layouts... how to overlay the text and use both multiple story boxes as well as multiple photos.  Take another look and you'll see the formula.  The first panel is one large photo with two boxes, one on the upper left and one on the lower right.  The second panel has the two photos each with a box on one side.  Top right and bottom left.  The third panel is more or less the first panel with the location of the text boxes reversed.  Upper right and lower left.  The fourth panel is the second panel again with the text boxes reversed, upper left and lower right.  I got a little more creative on the fifth panel by using three text boxes, and the last panel was a way to utilize a single photo by breaking it up into two separate images.

To be honest, I'm smiling at my own work.  I can't recall it, but I imagine I was VERY happy when I finished making this series.  It really does help that I love that background.  That saturated Azure color and it's textured background.  With most images it would be too over the top, especially considering just how much of the background is shown in most panels... but the images I used were over saturated on their own.  The blue is perfectly mirrored in many of the images and items like her red bra were enough to keep your attention right where I wanted it.

Overall I can say I'm happy with this cap, even if most of that satisfaction comes from the design instead of the story.  I mean, these are caps after all and not literature.  If this were intended to be a story that would stand up on its text alone, then it would be a failure.

Speaking of stories, I've actually started writing one.  Remember way back when I originally started my second blog and intended to write out a long form story based on my cap "Language Barrier"?  Well... I kinda got bored recently.  I considered making a cap but that just didn't sit right with me.  So instead I pulled up those old posts where I meticulously prepared to write out that long story.  I talked about the story line, the main character, added some sub characters and moved the story around a bit to make it more viable as a multi chapter form.

After reading those... I started writing.  I've written two chapters so far, and neither are anywhere close to done.  In fact the first one will probably be completely re-written.  I don't know if I'll ever finish it... but for now that remains a good possibility.  If I ever end up calling it off, I'll post what I have here.  If, on the other hand, I continue to make progress, I'll eventually publish it to fictionmania.

Anywho, life is still going well.  While I would love to say that my desire to become Caitlyn is burning me up and that I'd be back soon with more caps and more fun... I just don't miss it.  I'm still proud of what I did as Caitlyn and these posts will continue as I want this blog to remain up for a long LONG time.  I'll probably make another post around February 8, 2015.  If you have any cap that you'd like me to talk about I'm more than happy to oblige.

Happy Transforming!