Dee-lusions of Grandeur

A leap forward with Exot-i-fit

2012-03-01T19:52:00.001-05:00

Made this one a few minutes ago for Jeannie, who was offering a 2 for 1 caption deal if you used one of the pictures she posted to her trading folder. There were only a few left, but the photo I nabbed gave me a good vibe, and had lots to work with. I edited the picture down somewhat to take out a bit of stuff I didn't need, and gave it a good focus with what I wanted to use, specifically the blonde cowgirl, and the banner in the background.

From there, I figured that the banner would be a product and that John would be looking for a sales position, along with his friend Jake. They'd of course have to try it out to make sure it worked properly, and hey, its better than selling steak knives.

Since its a TG caption .. of course it worked! It worked REALLY WELL, and now they have no choice but to fulfill the contract requirements for employment. Hell, I'd hate to see what they could do if you tried to back out of the agreement. I assume whatever it was for a punishment, they both figured it'd be easier to just go along with things, and earn a decent salary.

Lastly, I wanted to play around with a twist, so this time of year provided a good little stinger at the end to wrap things up nicely.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: I am feeling better now medically, and since Caitlyn is taking a sabbatical, Steffimarie has slowed down her output, and Jennifer is getting her new laptop under control .. any new TG sites or blogs I should be looking at that isn't listed in my side bar? Figured I would ask since I've been a bit out of the loop. Doesn't mean I WILL add them, but I always like to check out what others like. Feel free to give me ideas or promote your own TG blog here in the comments.

As if the genderbend virus wasn't bad enough!

2012-02-28T19:33:00.000-05:00

This was a donation caption for Taralyn .. every panel she receives, she'll pay 5 bucks towards the upkeep of the haven. I wish more people would make her a caption so we can keep the web host we have now, OR find a better one that won't crash as much. The Haven seems to get the short end of the stick when it comes to server issues, and the customer support reeks.

You don't usually see enough "its happening RIGHT NOW!" captions, since most people don't want to see mannish women, or femmed out men in their little caption fantasies. Unless you make the physical changes happen first, and write the caption as their mind changes, the writer is in a bit of a bind to make transitional captions.

This picture gave me a chance to play around a bit and create something that was an "in the middle of another change" slice of in the moment captioning. As soon as I saw the picture, it said to me, "guy is changing into a bimbo right now!" The face is obscured a bit, so it can be easier to see yourself in the caption too. It was a nice little moment, and I wrote it up hoping that no one else would find the picture before I had a chance to finish it up.

While not reinventing the wheel, I like the fact that there are multiple changes. First from boy to girl, then an adaption period before I spring the 2nd part from girl to airhead blonde. In a way, that is probably a worse transition than just from boy to bimbo.

I am not sure there is a universe out there called the genderbend virus. I just wanted something vague and generic that would move the plot along. Its more of a deus ex machina than something fleshed out. I apologize a thousand times if I inadvertently infringed upon any established fictional universe and their codes of law. Mea Culpa, Mea maxima culpa.

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Few other things I'd like to note. First is that Caitlyn is taking time off to make sure she finishes up her professional training, so I am going to miss her until she gets back. Knowing her these past few years, she is usually "all-in" or "go home" .. no half-measures for Caitlyn! That also means, I don't expect she'll be gone TOO LONG! I'd like to take credit for bringing her to the Haven and making her a must see captioner, but if it wasn't me, I'm sure SOMEONE else would've tickled her fancy enough to get her to start making her own captions!

Also, I noticed that someone has recently created a TG caption site that is pretty much an aggregate of other people's captions. While I don't mind people saving captions I've made to their computers, etc .. and I have no issues with anyone posting my captions elsewhere .. I DO EXPECT that you give CREDIT and a LINK BACK to MY SITE here. The page says its a conglomerate of captions, but if you don't tell people WHO made them, the viewer have no idea who to seek out. Other people on the web do watermarks (like Steffimarie and Simone) but I would prefer to keep my captions free from distractions (and I am very ADHD and often end up staring at their watermarks instead of the caption cuz my eyes wander) so please don't make me rethink my policy on that. I'm glad you like my captions, but please abide my reasonable requests in posting them.

That being said .. if you come here often and DON'T belong to Rachel's Haven .. why the fuck aren't you a member yet?? There are THOUSANDS of captions in the trading area alone, plus a ton of archival sets in the gallery of old lycos and yahoo sites that have since closed shop. If you like to Role Play, you can find a bunch of people to mess around with, and its just a friendly atmosphere all around.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What type of picture would you think best fits the "the transformation is happening as we read" type caption? What other ways could we write up a caption to use a more generic photo?

PS. You are ALWAYS welcome to ask other questions, make comments, or just sort of ramble if it fits in with something I've touched upon up above!

The Hidden Compartment, Pea Brain, and 1 million hits!

2012-02-24T23:44:00.002-05:00

This was an "insta-caption" I'd done for Petra back in November of 2010. I think Pea had posted new pictures to her "photos for captioning" folder on the Haven, which Steffie had grabbed one and was having me proofread it, if I recall correctly. I figured I would check out what new stuff she'd posted (Petra has a great eye for gorgeous women in poses and situations that work really well for TG captions) and this picture just jumped right out at me.

I don't recall it taking more than 5-8 minutes from start to finish. I love making captions for people like Steffie and Petra because we are all good friends, and all enjoy goofing around with each other. Even more than that, we ENCOURAGE each other to be wacky and irreverent. Here's a small series I made for Petra, that I don't THINK I've posted here before.

I can't tell you how much fun it was to make, and get reactions to, this caption set. That is the main reason I wanted to post tonight. Sometime over the weekend, this blog will have hit the 1 million mark for page views.

I know that since this is more of a discussion site, I don't necessarily get the views that other sites get, and I have no problem with that. I think that my goal is to lift the curtain and show what is going on inside a somewhat creative mind, and get others to think about what they are viewing and/or creating. Its a earnest minded goal to be sure, and I do take the discussions seriously, but the main goal here, and in the Haven, is to have as much fun and enjoyment as possible. Not only that, but to make sure that everyone else comes along for the carnival ride.

I love what I do, and there is no mistaking the fact that I enjoy making captions. That is why I have this blog, and why I've probably not suffered any particular burnout creatively. Here is something that ended up being ironic .. its from the FIRST POST I ever made at the Haven:

As a lot of people that like TG, I am prone to disappearing and reappearing, and as such, it's apparent that it'll take me forever to get enough postings to see the real galleries, both here and at the (bimbo) sanctuary (I'm finally up to 70 or so there, only took me about 2 years for that!) I'll post a few things, then think I'm saying too much and revealing, then scurry away like a squirrel. Then at some point, when I have free time, I'll pop back in.

I envy those that really can just jump right into the communities and post away without any fears. Perhaps they feel they can be free to be what they want online, or that they are truly comfortable with laying it all out there.

Well, other than the fact I'd never MADE a caption at that point, once I hit the Haven, I never looked back. I made friends there, which meant fun, then made some captions, which was even more fun! Over time, I became more established, helped out in many facets (writing coach, librarian, links coder, then finally admin) and in every case, found something whimsical and charming about the whole experience. All that made me exactly the person I wanted to be online, and the person that I used to envy. What a wonderful outcome!

Long story long, since its my friggin' blog ... I hope that you can see the joy in each caption that I make and discuss, either here or on the Haven. I like to think that I leave a bit of the essence of "Dee" in all my works. I remember Bren saying that she would quit making captions once she hit 1k. I wondered why she was being so arbitrary. How can you stop if you are having a blast, or even worse, if you kept making captions if your heart wasn't into it .. just to make your goal. Luckily Bren kept on going after she passed 1k (I think she's over 1200 right now) but I know I'll stop only when it isn't fun anymore.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: When it comes to captions, what is it that makes it the most enjoyable? Is it the subject matter (like a certain fetish or genre) the picture, the mood, the design, the worldview of the creator, or something else? I'm hoping that I get lots of comments on this.

Welcome to the House of Fun!

2012-02-23T21:52:00.000-05:00

Yes, its a mellow caption, but what do you expect? I've been out of commission for a bit now, and need to ease into naughtier captions, so consider this a palette cleanser.

Made this 2 days ago for Chelsea Baker, as she was one of the few people I had left in my debt chart. The idea was to make a oblivious caption, so I went to the web to see what I could find. I didn't want anything too over the top, so I limited it to leggy pictures. When I found this picture, a fun house setting struck me as a neat idea for a caption. It started as a "wouldn't it be interesting if places put fun house mirrors in their bathrooms?" From there though, it turned around as "what if the fun house made the changes, and the mirror was actually real, but he thought it was part of the whole experience?"

Juxtaposing the central idea appealed to me, as it almost puts conventional wisdom on its head, and gives a caption that is almost from left field. I used the stereotypical "chick idea of a great date" to drive home the changes made by the fun house, and threw in some that "guys think is a chick's idea of a great date" and "things that chicks do on girls night out."

Of course, while finishing up the caption, this song was playing in my head!

Speaking of that song, you'd think there would be more captions based around pharmacists and drug stores! I think I've only made a few captions dealing with that, and this happens to be the 1st one.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Anyone thinking of making special Leap Year captions? Figured since it only comes once every 4 years, there would be some sort of magic involved that might be interesting for TG ideas. I am going to bounce some around my brain pan, though I'm not sure I WILL do something, I figured I'd ask if others had any thoughts on it.

The Scariest Show on Television!

2012-02-21T19:05:00.001-05:00

Made this caption for no one in particular, so its a blog exclusive! Its not QUITE a body swap, officially, but more like a gender and social standing swap.

This was made a few weeks ago: the last time I really sat down with the purpose of making captions. I saw the picture (I think on the main screen of Yahoo) and thought it was a good photo for some sort of swap. I mean, the guy is holding a remote control, we can't see what is ON the screen BUT their reactions are somewhat extreme and a bit over-the-top. It really needed to be captioned by someone in my opinion! Might as well have been me right?

From there, it just needed to be fleshed out. Am I completely happy about it? Not really. I probably left some plot points out, and since it was towards the beginning of my medical crap, I definitely kept it PG rated. Why haven't I kept it in the archives and reworked it later on down the line? To be honest, once I figured out it wasn't going to be for someone else, I kind of lost the burning interest in seeing it come alive. Looking at it now, the caption seems like me sleepwalking through the whole creative process, and going through the motions. Sometimes that is good enough, but not this time, I must humbly say.

Health wise, I am doing much better, and I have a followup on Thursday that should give me a much better idea of how things are going to proceed henceforth. I am not jumping in full throttle back into the TG game quite yet, but I hope to ramp up my involvement very soon. Perhaps I'll fire up my programs soon and see if I can muster up some compelling captions in the next week or so!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: How would YOU have handled the picture in the caption above? I'm really interested in what sort of story/plot YOU would have made to go along with the photo.

A Business Meeting ... or Just a Transaction?

2012-02-17T14:58:00.002-05:00

This caption set goes back a LONG time ago, almost 4 years ago! Whoa! Where did all the time go?

Figured I'd post an update. A few hours after I blogged on Saturday, I ended up in the hospital with vomiting, etc ... and ended up with a big case of dehydration, which was bad due to my other medical issues. I ended up going into surgery on Monday to fix something, and a follow up procedure on Thursday, so I've been out of commission for quite some time now. Hopefully in the next week or so I'll be back to my normal bitchy self, and can pounce into the TG scene the way I was before all these life complications took place.

If you notice, I have tried to stay out of viewing actual captions, but will chime in when its a discussion ABOUT captions, though I really haven't popped on to anyone specifically .. its more of a "check to make sure my blog is working, oh Caitlyn has a discussion about ..." and I'll put my two cents in when the feeling gets me.

I've really missed the camaraderie of my captioner friends, and getting the inspiration to create new works. It pains me in many ways not to be able to participate the way I want to.

Working Sissy Monthly .. and Formspring Question

2012-02-11T21:31:00.007-05:00

Well, I was messing around with Photoshop, mostly because I know that Facebook will soon make us all use their TIMELINE thing, which means a widescreen main picture. I wanted to try out some new techniques. Some of them worked, but others for some reason didn't, specifically selecting few layers to create a new layer group. I couldn't get my SHIFT + mouse click to work so I could pick more than one selected layer. Because of that, I gave up and went to a picture directory I barely ever view, figuring I'd find some pictures I could fuck around with.

This picture was one of the 1st ones I saw, since its quite old. I think it might actually be from 2002! For some reason, the composition of the photo and the subject matter screamed "Its a magazine cover for Working Sissies!" BINGO! From there, it just took a bit of time to come up with some topics. I can't wait to read the cover story about how Ron's company is doing so much better now that he's just another member of the secretarial pool instead of the head honcho. I even used the same font that Cosmopolitan uses for their magazine covers.

Is Screamo still around? Hard to believe that THIS song is almost 10 years old now!

This song below is one of my favorite "tranny" songs. Hard to believc that THIS SONG is in JUST DANCE for the Wii! Get those future drag queens dancing in style!

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This leads to a formspring question that I wasn't officially ignoring, but really wanted to put a conscious effort into doing it properly. It is from Simone:

Challenge: You're a woman for a day - what's the soundtrack to your girl day and why?

I would state my case that I don't really think I would change much about the music I listen to as a boy or as a girl. I'd probably want to go out dancing at a club, so some of it would have to be some mindless pop music, perhaps Born This Way by Lady Gaga would be an ironic musical statement to boogie my boobies around in a club.

However, upon thinking about it further, I wouldn't what style of music best represents transgender ideas and ideals? For me, its cabaret music. There is utter beauty in the performance, but the undercurrent is darker than what is apparent on the surface. And nothing represents that ideal with another of my favorite genres .. the punk cabaret duo of The Dresden Dolls.

Amanda Palmer is truly a force of nature, who never stops to think about why she shouldn't do something, even pissing off most of the gothy fan girls by marrying Tim Burton and releasing entire CD's of ukelele cover songs. Brian Viglione is an incredible drummer, and probably just behind Josh Freese in terms of talent (high praise indeed!) Brian is also an admitted straight man and a cross dresser, and doesn't give a rats ass who knows.

I can't begin to describe how much I love this fucking song! It moves me in ways that not many songs can, and its themes are both universal and strangely personal at the same time. It doesn't fit the standard Dresden Dolls song, yet its probably the MOST Dresden Dolls song as well.

Sing cause its obvious, sing for the astronauts sing!
Sing for the president, sing for the terrorists sing!

Life is no cabaret ...We don't care what you say ...
We're inviting you anyway ..
You motherfuckers you'll sing someday!

Who doesn't want to just open up and say what you feel, and show the world who you really are behind the masks we all build for ourselves. It is hard not to let your emotions run free when you are singing. It is probably the most intimate thing we can do in public. I mean, how often have you been embarrassed at a stop light or someplace, singing your heart out along to the car radio, when you realize that someone is watching you? Sometimes happiness is the littlest things in life, and those little things are the most freeing things we can do.

And unfortunately, I wanted to go to the video shoot, but my car broke down that day! Stupid transportation issues! No mater what though, I'll just sing!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What style of music do you think best represents transgender ideas and ideals? What would you listen to on your day as a female and why?

Dr. Mentia Opens her Hypno Office

2012-02-10T22:23:00.000-05:00

Well, I said I would post a hypnosis series, and I am pretty damn sure I haven't posted it here before.

I made this series for Samantha Hanley, who has sort of disappeared over the last few months (She hasn't signed onto the Haven since October 2011) and I really miss her work. She was really into two things that I enjoy in captions ... Hosiery and Hypnosis. Now and again, she'd come up with some really cool twists, but I'm not sure if she just got burned out with captioning or something else. Samantha dear, if you are out there, drop me a PM or something!

Anyway, I am a big fan of both, and wanted to make her something special, but wasn't sure where to go until I found a series of pictures that pretty much scripted what I wanted to say. By this point (April 2011) I was barely making anything longer than 1 panel. From my idea though, I KNEW that it had to be longer than that, since in my head, there were certain points I wanted to hit, and figured one panel per emphasis point would convey the story better, especially since the best pictures were aligned horizontally.

I like to think that I made it flow fairly well from panel to panel, especially since my ADD (or is it ADHD?) tends to kick in by the third panel if I try to make series. She isn't a fan of magic, so I had to create the whole "manipulating body tissue" to get the boobies to make sense, since the point was the computer and phone triggers were changing him from a "former college acquantence" to a secretary over the course of the morning.

Looking at it again, I realize that I was definitely making all the exposition flow through her stream of consciousness dialog, but I'm not sure how else I could have done it and made it flow the way I wanted it to be. I don't think its clunky, but I recognize the limitations I had imposed upon myself. Hypnosis captions tend to need more verbiage to get their point across. Even though it runs through four panels, I am not sure how much more I could whittle down and still have a completely coherent TG caption series.

In other blog news, I was bored the other night and tagged all the posts for February of 2011. That leaves March-May of 2011 without tags for the blog. I wrote up many posts for those months, but if I can do one Month per week, I should have ALL the captions tagged by the middle of March.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What do you like about hypnosis TG captions? What things about hypnosis captions make you want to scream "I NEVER want to see THAT again!"? What things WOULD you like to see more of in TG hypnosis captions, that you don't see enough?

Welcome .. and you're welcome!

2012-02-08T20:53:00.000-05:00

Here's a "lost caption" from 2009 that had never been posted anywhere on line until now. The staff and admins of the Haven were trying to figure out new ways to get freshly joined people more into the Haven, and ways to get lurkers out of their shells. This has long been a problem for many sites, including most of the TG blogs that are looking at their hit counters and wondering why the comments are so low.

One of my ideas, which was never implemented, was to make a boilerplate caption or two .. and the one that fit a persons profile the best would be sent to their private message inbox. We'd have some made up depending on some of the major draws of TG, like schoolgirl, BBW and pregnancy, bimbo, etc ... and we'd just plug in their male/female name.

The caption above is one of those boilerplate captions that I made. I can't find any others, so perhaps another staff person made a 2nd one, or the idea was dropped after just one? Another possibility is that I just recycled some of the others into a normal caption for someone else later on. Either way, the idea was to make something "generic" enough to fit the most widespread group of people that would be joining the Haven, while making it personalized enough that people would think it was just for them.

Yes I realize that the above description makes it sound like a TG form letter, but (1) there are a TON of people that have joined the Haven and continue to do so, and (2) no one gets paid to make captions .. could you imagine cranking out hundreds of captions for ANYONE that joined?

Long story short, we mostly worked on the Haven FAQ, and did some streamlining, all while keeping our core values and striving for continuing diversity along our previously designated matrices, while allowing for growth in unexpected allocated units.

This blog is slowly creeping up on 200 members, which is always a good sign. My goal is to always have more members than posts, so even a 1:1 ratio is ok. If it gets to a point where I've got 300 posts and 200 followers, I might have to readjust my goals or rethink what the impact the blog has on others. I also think I'm about 35k short of a million hits, so I'm guessing around the end of February, I'll hit that very cherished mark.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Since I've gotten a decent bump up in members over the last few weeks, I'd like to hear from some new arrivals, but as usual, all visitors are welcome to comment. What is the most inviting aspect of this blog and what drew you to it?

Making a few changes

2012-02-06T19:47:00.000-05:00

My House .. My rules .. My God! .. My body!

This caption topic is my general theme for today .. changing up (hopefully for the better) things around you. In this one, Patrick soon finds out that you really shouldn't set a precedent you can't follow up with, especially when your offspring has magical powers. Even in real life, if there is a loophole somewhere in your reasoning, your teen daughter will find it, trust me!

This is what I said in a reply to a comment posted in the folder when this caption was originally posted to Rachel's Haven:

The loophole was sorta thought about after watching 10 Things I Hate About You" with my own dear sweet lawyer, well, until the phone call came along that she had to take "CUZ, OMIGODYOUAREKIDDING? WHATHAPPENEDYOUTELLMEEVERYTHINGHONEY! ITWILLBEOKISWEAR!"

Yup, she'll be an incredible Penny Mason in a few years!

Its an old caption, but I think its a good plot device, and one I hadn't seen much of since I made it. Of course, if I had made this recently, as opposed to 3 1/2 years ago, it'd look A LOT better visually .. but I'm not sure how much I'd change in the execution of the storyline or writing. Perhaps I'd make the ending slightly less clunky to read, but overall, I am happy with how it turned out.

If you didn't notice, I went and changed up the look of this blog somewhat. I didn't really make wholesale changes, and I reserve the right to mess around some more. Its really my first overhaul since I started this blog about 18 months or so ago. The main thing I wanted to change up was the banner at the top. I made it at work and was never really that fond of it. Its a bit more of what I want, and a bigger size so that I can make the actual blog wider .. since most people now have screens bigger than 1000 pixels across. Other than that, some of the colors have been tweaked, and I'm going to look into other add-ons to make the page better.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: How do you like the slight update? Any ideas that you think I should work on next? I am willing to listen if people have constructive comments to make!

Formspring Questions

2012-02-04T23:27:00.002-05:00

This one is from Alektra:

I know that we can make funny or silly caps. And since we all have our sense of humour... how do you think it would be possible to introduce actual jokes without breaking a plot or the story of the cap?

I am not really sure what you are referring to in your question. I mean, many of my complete captions are actual jokes, well perhaps more of a comedy routine as done by a stand-up comedian, but funny. Jokes tend to be more pun-based, or rely on things like "Why did the moron throw the clock out the window? He wanted to see time fly!" I think the one good running joke for TG captions would be blonde jokes.

Jokes and pranks, in and of themselves, are also a pretty good plotline for TG captions, as evidenced up above. I've used them in a few captions over the years, and they are always fun, since its usually a "taste of their own medicine" justice served hot and steaming.

In regards to the actual question, are you looking to make a caption that is serious in tone, then introduce something "funny" then go back to the serious tone? I'm sure it could be done, but I think that captions tend to work best when you stay on a path, and follow through from the set-up to the pay off. Otherwise, you are taking attention away from the true point of its creation.

I guess that one way you could do that is to have a couple getting ready to be introduced as "man and wife" for the first time at their wedding reception, then having a little anecdotal chuckle about something that happened to them when they first swapped bodies, and end with them having their first dance on the floor in front of all their friends and family. That could be both sweet and funny.

This one is from someone with a request:

I wish you would do more hypnosis related captions :(

and

Could you do more hypnosis please?

Pretty much how I do this blog is to think about discussion questions and then find captions I've made that can further the discussion and/or elaborate on a point I have brought up, which a caption could shine light on more than just blabbing on about it.

Perhaps, if you phrased your questions in a context of something to do with hypnosis, it'd be a more likely occurrence that some hypnosis captions would appear in the blog. Maybe you have a hypnosis idea that would make a great caption, but you don't think you have the time, or skills, or would like to see me tackle your scenario? Things like that would definitely be a reason to post more hypnosis captions.

If the Pats win the Superb Bowl tomorrow, I will post a hypnosis/magic caption series I did about a year ago that I am pretty sure I haven't posted here on my blog. IF the giants win, you'll have to wait a bit longer!

Mmmm, Painkillers!

2012-02-02T19:43:00.001-05:00

Well, I am not feeling much pain right now because the meds haven't worn off from the medical procedure yet (HULK SMASH!) so I figured I'd give a quick little update.

I'm home and will be resting semi-comfortably soon.

There ya go! As concise as I strive to be in regards to my captions.

The caption above is one I enjoyed making for Jennifer a long time ago. I might've posted it here in the blog before, but if so, who cares! Its something for you to look at! Just look at it again! If not, hey, its something new!

Hope to have something posted either tomorrow if I feel up to it, or maybe next Monday.

Samantha is a Perfect Topping

2012-01-31T17:17:00.003-05:00

This caption was designed a few weeks ago when I was in a "Viking Raid" sort of picture hunt.

Sometimes I will snag pictures and just save them to the hard drive until I come up with something. Other times I will do more of a "Caption starter" where I will find the picture and place it immediately into a caption setting, with the picture cropped and edited, and place into an already shaded background for later text additions. Mostly I do these when I KNOW I will use the picture .. might as well get things as comfy/cozy as possible for when I want to make it.

So anyway, I came across a cache of pictures that were really great quality and this was probably the best one. When it came time to make the caption, I owed Sammie, and I haven't made her as many redheads as she probably should've been, so I figured that THIS one would make up for the lack of previous redheads. Don't you agree?

I didn't want to do an elaborate story because, to be honest, I didn't think it needed one. The pose, the look, and the whole "cherry" thing pretty much spoke for itself. I just wanted to pare down everything possible to make it as concise and pin-point as possible.

This was one of three captions I made yesterday, while using a pain med. I am not fond of them at all, but was finding the discomfort intolerable. If I get time today, I might write up the other two, save them, and then have something to post over the next week. I will be getting a treatment on Thursday, so hopefully I will be in some intense pain for a day or two, then much less going forward. There will probably be a followup with the doctor next week, and we'll see how much I've progressed since this weeks medical treatment.

Its been odd the last week or so, being involved in some TG sites and blogs, but not actively looking at any actual content. I did a bit of an overhaul on the Trading Area of Rachel's Haven. Then Sunday we had the issues with the server host on the Haven. With the other administrative duties at the Haven, I still feel useful to the TG community while I try to deal with medical issues and get better so I can fling myself back into making captions on a regular production schedule and popping in to comment on other people's creations.

I hope everyone will stick around, pop in here every few days, and just wait things out until I can put a complete effort into this blog once again. I know that I'm approaching 1 million views, and wanted to celebrate that when it happens .. I just want to do so when I am able to party properly!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Do you tend to hunt for pictures all at once, saving them to your hard drive for later captioning? Or do you look around, find a picture you like, THEN stop and make the caption right away? Figured I would ask, since people have different ways of creating.

Rachel's Haven server is down

2012-01-29T13:08:00.001-05:00

In case people were wondering, the Haven servers have been down for about 6 hours now. The server host company hopes to have service up as soon as possible. If you can't log in for your daily (hourly??) fix right now, how about hitting up a bunch of TG blog sites until the Haven is back up again?

This caption was almost 4 years ago!! Damn! Figured it worked in well with the server issues that the Haven is having today, and technically for the last few weeks. I'm hoping that the company that hosts us gets its collective shit together soon.

By the way, "throughput' is an actual computer programming term. You have input, output, and throughput. That was your Dee-ply geeky moment of the weekend!

The Haven Quarterly - Issue 3 is now available!

2012-01-25T16:09:00.002-05:00

This issue is packed with 92 (!) pages of TG captions, stories, and other wonderful distractions!

Everything inside the eZine is EXCLUSIVE and won't be seen on anyone's blog, or even on the Haven itself. It contains creations by : Sci-Fi Kara, Nadine, Davewashere, JPL, Dementia, Argus, Kaitlyn, Rediqulaz, Alexia, Terri, Erin, Steffiemariechen, Caitlyn-Masked, Victoria Hyde, Totalditz, Jennifer, Elly, Alectra, Master Caster, Playin Petra, One Eyed Pirate, Bren, Mistress Simone, Annabelle, Sarine Davis, Martha, and Smitty!

Also, a huge shout out to Shysteffie for compiling and designing the whole she-bang! There is no way this could have been done without her really stepping up to the plate.

Honestly, if you can't find at least 2-3 people in there that just makes you all melty when looking at their work, you really shouldn't consider yourself a TG fan. The Haven Quarterly costs $10, ALL proceeds will be used to keep the site online. The eZine is loaded with EXCLUSIVE captions and stories from some of your favorite contributors on the Haven and is available no where else!

My contribution consists of : a few realistic advertisements sprinkled throughout the pages, and another installment of "Ask a / Letters to Mistress" that is one of the more bizarre things I've ever done ... truly! I was in a utterly daffy place when I got the letter, and my reply is out there. Even reading it now, I am in that "What the hell was I drinking?" mode. Equal parts brilliance and 'WTF?' on the same page.

Grab your copy today and tell them Dementia .. sentya!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: If you got this issue, or the last one, what did you think of the "ask the mistress" portion that I wrote? Figured I would ask!

Patriots going to the BIG GAME!

2012-01-23T16:28:00.002-05:00

Figured I would call it the "big game" because the NFL has been known to go after restaurants, travel agencies, and even churches that use the name of the game without their written consent, etc ...

I would've enjoyed the game much more if I wasn't heading to the toilet every 10 minutes to empty my bladder. I'm not quite sure if I would rather have the intense pain than the constant urination a stent is forcing me to go through. Luckily I have work that I am able to do at home, and I sucked it up for a half day at work (the 40 minute drive each way was EXCRUCIATING!!) to be able to grab what I need to work here.

I'd like to thank all the well wishers on the last post. Makes me feel good to know that people do care :) The word really hasn't gotten out on the Haven, and not sure I want it out too much. The last thing I want is a bunch of "get well captions" that I won't be able to read until I'm actually better .. and make me look like I don't appreciate them!

The blog even got a few new followers, which is weird since I haven't posted or commented on any other blogs in almost a week. Even weirder, it seemed like the weekend was pretty slow on most TG blogs, so to pick up any followers is extremely welcome. Hope you enjoy the site, all you recent newcomers!

Until I have a more clear idea of WHAT is going to happen physically (I don't even have a followup until this Friday!! Arrgghh!) I don't plan on making any new trade captions, or commenting on others. I will probably do some like this post, perhaps twice a week, where I just put up a caption without much discussion, just to make sure everyone remembers who I am LOL At the least, I'm less likely to disappear from blogger if its updated regularly.

I'm sorry that I am a big supporter of the whole "captioning community" and yet, I'm sort of wandering off for a bit. I'm hoping it doesn't look like I'm abandoning everyone, but its just quite uncomfortable to view captions at this point in time, especially when there are usually gorgeous looking women in them! I promise that once I get everything straightened out, I'll be back with as much vigor as I have had before. I am still working behind the scenes at the Haven on various shit that comes down the pike.

Some Health Issues

2012-01-19T14:53:00.002-05:00

I haven't been around here much the last few days since I was in the hospital. Ahhhh, morphine totally rocks, by the way. I can certainly see why people get addicted to opiates.

I have a 2 cm stone in my kidney, which apparently has trouble getting through a tube that is only about 3-4 mm wide. There was talk about doing surgery where they go in through my back, and into the kidney to retrieve it, but its pretty invasive, involved catheters, and I would spend a few days at least in the hospital.

I chose the other route, which was "put in a stent" and in a week or so, they'll use some sort of shockwave thing to break up the stone. The issue is that since the stone is so big, it might take a few rounds of that treatment for it to become small enough to pee out. So instead of one BIG stone that won't come out, I'll have a ton of littler stones that still hurt like a bitch when they come out.

This surgery trumps the other surgery I had lined up, so THAT stuff will be on hold for the time being.

The thing to note about all this is, I'm not sure how active I will be in others blogs. I might be able to throw up some posts from time to time here, but life isn't exactly a bowl of cherries right now for me, and I don't want that to influence/color any comments/praise I have for others work. Also, though I don't usually get too aroused by looking at TG captions, they do often contain good looking women, and I'd prefer not to have to deal with any mid-sectional issues, if you catch my drift. Just pissing right now hurts, and when I start doing that with the added benefit of shooting out sand, I'm not looking forward to the next month or two.

Hey, maybe I'll be feeling better in a week. I certainly hope so, but I figured I would let people know up front. I should be around to do most of my admin tasks on the Haven, and if you need to contact me, go through the usual channels.

The Picture Can Make All the Difference

2012-01-16T23:42:00.001-05:00

This is a cautionary tale .. about making sure your preferences are kept up to date and detailed, while still leaving room to let captioners be themselves. The person I made this for liked to be humilated, so I thought I would oblige them. When people are relatively new, I try not to go too overboard, but the preferences were pretty much daring me to make something ..

As you can probably tell ... I love HUMILIATION!, there is nothing I enjoy more than being mocked for how girly and prissy I am becoming during the process of feminization. This is not a must in a caption but for me personally I think it adds alot

I love the idea of being trapped in my new feminine role, such as giving me permanent makeup, taking away all my male possessions, or putting me in a situation where I have to keep acting as a girl

Well, from that, I made the caption up above. I had a feeling that I had gone a BIT too far in the picture though, so after I posted, I sent a PM saying that I could change it if it was too much. About 3 hours later I got the "I'm not really diggin the picture" aspect. To be honest, I expected that response, but I figured the picture is what made the humiliation aspect work. They wanted "realistic, not magic" for their caption, and I thought I hit that right on the head. If you looked like a covergirl, you'd probably lose quite a bit of the edge. "Oh noes! I look better than 98 percent of the real women out there! What ever am I going to do?" I probably could have found a picture that went half way between what I portrayed in the caption and a real woman, but I wanted to see how much is too much.

Anyway, about 10 minutes later, I took what I had, edited it a bit, and then wrapped it around another picture.

This version works well too, but to me, it doesn't have the SNAP the original does.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: How do you feel about each caption, and which one do you like better? I am guessing that most people will like the second one much more. Why do you prefer one over the other?

2012-01-12T20:11:00.003-05:00

Got time to post something smaller than that LONG post from yesterday. I might post something tomorrow if I get some time. If you don't see anything on Friday night, I probably won't be blogging over the weekend, since this is THE weekend for pro football fans, since all the teams that have made it this far are good .. no clunkers like most weeks during the regular season.

Yup, that is THE best Tight End in the league, with a porn star wearing his jersey, while he's shirtless. He catches passes from a world famous Hall of Fame QB that is married to a supermodel. Nice to know that some people have all the luck, eh?

Jennifer wanted to see something of the following:

And what I would like to see? umm.. Hot lips, thong panties. *giggle* how's that?

Well, I THINK I can at least do the lips, with a sweet little candy coated caption. Definitely not a bitter pill to swallow!

I wasn't really THAT good at photoshop then, but I think I did a decent enough job on the sweet tart candy. I don't recall what it said before but it was innocent. This was before the age of kinky valentine's day candy!

As for the thongs, I don't really do that many pictures showing them off on a juicy pair of buttocks. Perhaps I'll try to rectify that at some point. I probably missed a few I've done, but I didn't have time to look at ALL of them. I do have this caption that is somewhat close to a thong. Maybe in a few years!

Feel free to post in any of my old blog entries! and Remember, Soylent Green is made from people!

A Little Seduction Goes a LONG Way!

2012-01-11T18:51:00.000-05:00

Yeah! Since we are going to be discussing something that Caitlyn suggested, I figured I would post a very recent caption I made for her on the Haven. I also wanted to pay a bit of a homage to her by sort of incorporating a smidgen of her design style, while still keeping the tenets of Dee-ism.

Here is part of what I wrote in the original post:

It was fun to do this, because I wanted to see the after affects of the change, not so much the physical, but the other parts of Calvin/Caitlyn. Something tells me that you WOULD be like this if the situation occurred. You'd want to try to move on and cope as best you could .. trying new experiences instead of moping around. From there, you'd HAVE to experience sexuality as a female, so you would have to coax yourself and your friend to go along with it. Then, since you are now female, you get into the whole roleplay and seductive romance and then .. WHAMMO, the alpha male guy takes over, all cocky (pun intended) and headstrong. At that point, I think the submissive streak of Caitlyn takes over, but that is more for your imagination than a caption.

Hope you enjoy this! It probably helps to think of a little slurp noise at each piece of punctuation during your little seduction speech.

I loved her reply, and I'll post it here as well:

Tee Hee!! Its like a fairy tale come true. "And Caitlyn sucked happily ever after!"

I love it Dee. Very sexy photo... and yes I'm talking about the pretty new Caitlyn, not the lip stretching monster she's kissing.*, wonderful story, and I like your write up. I don't know how I would really react if given a change like this, but it is certainly possible. I'm just not sure any friend of mine would need that much convincing!

Thank you so much Dee!

Caitlyn

*o.k.. I'm talking about that too!

I don't often use photos like this, because, truth be told, I don't find most of the pictures like this the SLIGHTEST bit interesting. This one got me because of her expression, and honestly, the gentleness of the kiss at the head of a relatively large phallus. I prefer to have a picture enhance the story and vice versa, so that they interact with each other and provide a sense of balance.

The other part of the response I like leads to something Caitlyn brought up in a previous post when I was asking for some topics of discussion.

What drives you to cap? what makes you go into Photoshop after a bad day, or posting a cap and not getting the response you want. Is it fantasy? Challenge? Helping others? Creative Outlet? I'm not asking what made you want to cap in the first place, but after this many caps what drives you to continue?

Probably the number one reason I still caption is that I love this community and the friends I've made while being a productive captioner. Its so much more sociable now than 18 years ago when I was FTPing through the Mellon server and finding some stories scattered around Compuserve. This was pre-Fictionmania, and even pre-TSA mailing list. After that, there was the explosion of Geocities vanity sites (which sort of seems the same as Blogger is now) but there wasn't too much in the way of an online community I actually felt comfortable with. It was always broken down into fiction/fantasy and realistic crossdressing / sissydom and they hardly ever crossbred. Rachel's Haven seemed to mesh ALL those groups together fairly well, and I really embraced it.

The comment Caitlyn made not only made me feel appreciated, she let a bit of herself out for all to see. I tend to be the most friendly with those that put an effort into their comments. Then there were other comments made by people I consider close friends.

From Steffie:

*GASP!* Dirty pics from Dee? Say it ain't so....what's next, Courtney doing German fetish videos? Bren voting Democratic? The world is off it's hinges, I tell you... it just ain't right. Still, that an awfully sexy story you got there. *giggle*

Then a reply from Petra:

Since the world is off its hinges, I've decided to start wearing pants all the time as well as long sleeved turtle-neck shirts with denim vests over the top. Fun cap Dee and I'm sure that Caitlyn will be doing something like this quite often in the future.

There are so many instances where the discussion in the comments have influenced people's online characters, influenced future caption ideas, and fostered a genuine camaraderie that I cannot describe. If Caitlyn NEVER made another caption, it would be a disappointment, but as long as she is still around to chat and discuss whatever I want to talk about, I wouldn't have too much of a problem if she decided to not make them anymore. Her disappearing from my life would be much more of an upset to me.

I love to make captions for others, though I want to receive a caption from them as well. When someone shows an effort, it makes me so happy, regardless of whether I actually enjoy the caption at face value. It gets them involved, and hopefully they'll be hooked! In a way, each caption is a performance, and I want everyone to be a part of my freak cabaret! Its why I am so vehement about discussions that I hope will make people think more about captions beyond the kink/fantasy factor and into a realm of artistic mode of expression.

The biggest compliment I can get though, is when someone becomes a member, and *I* am their first caption subject. I am honored to have had that distinction a few times, and you really have to pry the smile off my face with a friggin' chisel whenever it happens. A few of the times I've been blindsided by it, as the people have never announced themselves to me until I got this incredible work of art, and I read, "I saw a caption you made, and was inspired to make one myself. Hope you like it!" Its such a validation of what I try to put out consistently in caption form .. a daily look into the mind of Dee that people will hopefully find interesting and compelling, even if only for a momentary distraction.

To to sum up something that has become a HUGE block of a post .. its all the things that Caitlyn mentions, but also so much more that I even have trouble putting into words.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: If you had to sum up "Dee the person" and "Dee's captions" in less than 20 words, what would you come up with? I'm actually really interested in knowing!

R U ready 4 sum Football .. TG captions?

2012-01-10T19:37:00.002-05:00

Multiple captions inside! Well, in honor of the big college football bowl game last night, which was won by some team that I guess wasn't supposed to even be in the game .. I figured I would post a few "football" captions, since Caitlyn asked nicely. I THOUGHT that I made a few, but looking through the "Dark"hives, I don't see THAT many. In fact, I think there are two football captions I haven't post to this blog. If I didn't do the Brett Favre one here, that would make only three.

Its weird because in terms of my favorite sport, Football is second only to Hockey. You'd think I'd have made more then. I've done a bunch of hockey, baseball, some basketball, pro wrestling, and even bowling!

This was made for Simone during our "Pick'em" league back in 2008. If I remember correctly, I came in second to Bren .. and this was made because Simone had been dogging Bren and her beloved Cowboys. When you think of the 'boys, you definitely have to think about the cheerleaders, who were probably more popular than the actual team in those down years between Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman. Simone sure looks happy out there on the field huh?

I might have posted this here already, but either way, it's the "other" football caption I could find (there is one based on the Cleveland Browns, but I KNOW that I've already posted that one) and the ironic thing about the caption is .. the model is the actual woman that received the naughty texts he sent, including a picture of his little Favre.

I still have lots of cheerleading captions left I haven't posted, but most of them are not-quite sport specific. You'd think they were for basketball or some other indoor sport, because the girls are doing their thing in a school gymnasium.

Hope everyone enjoys this little sports interlude. Football is a big thing on the Haven, with Bren loving the Cowboys, I think Simone likes the Falcons, Rachel is a HUGE 49ers fan, and I root for the league leaders in evil .. The New England Patriots. Hey, I wasn't a bandwagon fan .. I was a fan back when they were 1-15 in 1990! I'll be back with more discussion answers and more captions, so feel free to pop into the last blog post and comment there as well!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Sooooo, who wins the Super Bowl this year? Who do you think will be in the Super Bowl? What teams goes further .. Rachel's 49ers, or my Patriots?

Jotting Down the Voicemail

2012-01-09T20:46:00.001-05:00

This return caption was for Chelsea Baker, and I dipped into my real life bag of tricks to come up with the plot line. I've used the "repeat after me" device a few times (involving the line from Day the Earth Stood Still even), and its always fun to do. This time I focused on a really annoying trait that some people I know have, and that is reciting what they are writing when it comes to private voice mail. I've learned that if I want to keep ANYTHING a secret, NOT to leave them a message as anyone within earshot will learn about all the details.

I figured that was as good as any excuse to make a caption involving a hot secretary with long legs, etc .. It wasn't written, but you COULD make the case that his secretary was part of some sort of coven, and wanted to advance by making sure their bosses were no longer in positions of authority.

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I feel bad for not posting a more substantial blog post today, but I was quite busy at work today (preparing the annual reports for the fiscal year-end meeting in a few weeks) don't feel that well (probably another kidney stone or something) and I have to to finish up my last piece for the 3rd Haven eZine, an answer for an advice column, "Ask a Mistress". At least I THINK its my last piece. I'm always a sucker for helping Steffie when she asks. I have already made a few "adverts" to help space out the TG/TF stories in columns and perhaps something else I'm possibly forgetting. I believe its already over 50 pages, so I'll let people know when its out, especially since a bit of proceeds go toward helping to fight cancer.

Hey, the blog has been viewed 900k times as I write this! Sweet!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: For the next post or two, any particular caption content you'd like to see (other than pregnancy since I did that one a month back and no one commented on it)? It doesn't have to be a strict category, it could be something like "big tits" or "tight fitting jeans". Trying to get a gauge on what people want to see next. While I'm asking, any discussion topics you'd like me to touch upon or elaborate further?

The First Ever .. TG Caption Mad Lib!

2012-01-05T17:50:00.001-05:00

Well, it is PROBABLY one of the first .. just in case I DID rip it off from elsewhere. I got the idea from a Jimmy Fallon routine he did during the Christmas holidays .. where he did a mad libs set to "The Night Before Christmas" .. with celebrities filling in the words he'd taken out.

Right then and there, I said .. we need to do that on my blog .. all TG style! I grabbed a caption I'd done awhile back, which was a bit hard because 99 percent of the captions I make are for a specific person. I needed to find one that was sort of universal, and wasn't entirely tailored to really specialized preferences. This one I made for Tar seemed to do the trick, especially since it uses a normal TG situation, and wasn't offensive, overly sexual, or too perverted. I wanted to keep it PG.

I thought that everyone did a good job in supplying the words I needed to make this work. Here is the original (well, my original version that I used to make changes) so you can see how the MAD LIBS changed it.

It isn't too hard to make your own mad lib .. and it will hopefully get your commenters involved. Here is how I did it.

I looked for words that could be changed without too much fuss and still be fun to read with a word substitution. Those words I capitalized (as seen in the original caption). Then I gave each word a number, and figured out WHAT sort of word would replace it (ie "plural noun" or "general location") just like the real mad libs. Throw up a blog post detailing what you want (see last post for that). Then when its time to fill in the blanks, just replace the capitalized word with the new word. You might have to jiggle the line and paragraph breaks a bit (and tweak the grammar) but that is pretty much all there is to do!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Soooooo, what do you think? Was it fun? Would you like me to run another? If people liked it, I can try to do one every month or so,

The Breaker-Upper .. and an interactive MAD LIB!

2012-01-04T17:21:00.007-05:00

Just wanted to post a caption, and get to the meat of the posting. Pretty much a standard caption. I liked making it because its a relatively novel idea, and its based off of a "rent a boyfriend" business I read about on Yahoo or some other place a few years ago. Its more of an above board escort service, where you can have a guy pretend to be your boyfriend while you parents are visiting, or use to him to make an ex jealous, or the "I've moved on Steven, shouldn't you?" I figured it needed a feminine touch, and it would certainly explain a few of the breakups I'd endured when *I* was younger!

Now on to what was posted in the title. I am not sure if I am stealing this from anyone .. if so .. OH WELL, as its such a great idea I wanted to do it here too! Anyway, my plan is to take an old caption, which I've already picked out, and turn it into a Mad Lib. I think most people remember this game from their youth .. where you pick a random word of a certain part of speech to fit in an already written story. The people offering the words have no idea what the story is about. Once its filled out, its read out loud, to comic effect hopefully.

Here is what I need from everyone, regardless of whether you are a captioner or not. I am going to list what I need, numbered from 1 to 23. In the comments, pick THREE of the numbers that haven't been taken in the comment section already .. and fill in your blanks. I'll plug the words into the caption, and post both the original and the newly made MAD LIB in a few days. I will try to keep popping in and updating the blog when I number is chosen, but I can't guarantee I can update it really quickly, so please look in the comments for the latest updates on what was taken.

~~1. plural species of living creature (ie cats or plants, etc...)~~
~~2. noun~~
~~3. general location~~
~~4. plural noun~~
~~5. adjective~~
~~6. body part~~
~~7. adjective~~
~~8. collective grouping (ie murder of crows, queue, etc..)~~
~~9. number~~
~~10. authority figure~~
~~11. plural noun~~
~~12. verb~~
~~13. noun~~
~~14. noun~~
~~15. noun~~
16. plural noun
~~17. general location~~
~~18. verb (to something)~~
~~19. adjective~~
20. adverb (usually ends in ly)
21. verb
~~22. non-shoe article of clothing~~
~~23. general location~~

The above caption is NOT the caption I'll be posting. I don't think I've posted this caption to the blog, though I am not sure, and too lazy to look at everything I've posted here. There is no nudity in the caption, so its not overtly sexual, and the contents are definitely PG.

Lets see if we can have some fun!

Where is fancy bred, in the heart or in the head?

2012-01-03T18:52:00.000-05:00

I have never been diagnosed with ADD. I was a few years older than those who started to be seen that way .. and I was never hyperactive enough to get Ritalin prescribed to me or anything like that. I just have trouble focusing, and dealt better when I can float between different things. I actually do better work when there is chaos in the air and my thoughts scatter. I'm pretty sure I would be diagnosed now with Adult ADD if I wanted to be checked out.

Its why I really SUCK at writing stories, but pretty skilled at things like lyric writing and small creative bursts like captions. Trust me, I wish I could take most of my captions and flesh them out into a nice long juicy story, like Belladonna/Sarine does. I have written a few, and they probably would make really good short caption series, like perhaps 3 panels. I was writing TG captions before there WERE such a thing as TG captions LOL I don't think I cracked 1000 words in any of them!

This caption was worse for me though .. as I ended up ADDing right in the middle of the story. I will cut and paste what I wrote when I posted this to Victoria Hyde's trading folder, and elaborate some.

So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it.

Ummm, yeah. This caption is a perfect example of my ADD and my predilection for pop culture. Please read the caption first.

I started out with a basic premise of welcoming your into our little clique of dommes/malevolent forces (like with Simone and I) as I like what you write. From there, I thought it would make a good caption to set it in a corporation with an older woman picking a protege .. who runs the business and has many men/sissies under her thumb between both her public and private life. I don't recall that plot line nearly as much as most of the TG things that have come before. Suddenly though, it went from that idea into some sort of perverted Willy Wonka styled transferal of power .. involving the golden dildo, which signifies who has control. I really liked the idea and used a take on the speech that Gene Wilder gives Charlie in the glass elevator.

Yes, it does seem jarring to me, but yet in my brain it works. My thoughts went on a tangent and I couldn't reel it back in. Even worse, though I had no real resolution to the caption, THIS seemed like the best way to finish it.

I guess in one way, I like it because when I was young, Willy Wonka was a TG dream to me. If he could make a piece of gum turn a girl into a strawberry, he CERTAINLY could make a candy bar that could make me a girl, right? Almond Joys got nuts, Mounds don't! If only I could be Veruca Salt .. the little spoiled bitch that got everything she wanted and made everyone cower, all the while being cute and stylish!

Anyway, I am not sure that this caption is coherent enough to be .. umm good! Perhaps its OK, but there might be too much CONCENTRATED "DEE" in there for it to function as a typical everyday caption. Damn, I don't think this caption even fits into any of my current tags!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: If you could obtain any certain element of another captioners skills to make your own captions better, who and what would it be?

Dee's Beauty Salon .. Hello 2012!!!

2012-01-02T17:05:00.001-05:00

Was looking over the "Dark-hives", trying to find the first caption I made that wasn't specifically "magical" .. which took awhile since the first 240 panels* I made were pretty much exclusively dealing with spells, curses, wishes gone wrong, etc .. There was one other caption that left it blank, but it was more implied that magic was somehow the means of transformation. Hence it took me about 3 months (June 2008) into my captioning 'career' to try something out of my comfort zone.

Its fun to look back and see what you were doing then, and how you would do it differently now, 3 and a half years later. This is one of the first times I used my signature font, so it still LOOKS like something I'd do now, though I didn't frame it the way I do now. I also justified the text to whichever side the picture was positioned, which I don't think I did too often. I was still feeling out a style to call my own.

So, design wise, I'd probably do a few things differently (like make all the panels the same width) but I think the story and dialog would stay the same if I was making the same caption today. The main thing that jumps out at me though is this .. I don't usually go this deep into plots anymore. Could I boil this down to one caption sucessfully? I doubt it .. though its definitely a relative of another one I posted here over a week ago .. A Subtle and Tasteful Makeover. In fact, I mention that I didn't want to create a multi-panel caption with a guy picture in the 1st one .. subconsciously I was probably aware that I made a caption much like this one 3 years earlier!

This is something that Simone and I discussed over IM's last night. I think we both started around the same time making captions. We've probably done just about every story line and plot point we could since then. Trying not to repeat ourselves takes A LOT of effort, especially for people we've captioned often. We each have our own ways of dealing with it. I went with making micro-captions .. where I focused more on a specific element of the transformation, where some details are magnified while others are virtually non-existent. So its a "maid caption" but I leave out the "how" or "who did it" and focus on the feeling of having to clean their old mansion.

There are enough differences between this caption series and .. A Subtle and Tasteful Makeover .. that I don't feel that I plagiarized my own work. Others might have different opinions!

* By a rough guestimate, I've made over 1500+ TG panels. I did many more multi-panel captions when I started out. After 6 months or so, I barely went more than 2 panels for any caption I created.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What are some things you do to make sure you don't rehash the exact same captions again and again, especially when captioning a well worn TG motif? Other than trying to not draw attention to similar captions that you've done before .. like I did here! Do you just shrug your shoulders and say, "you can't really reinvent the wheel, so why bother?" or stress yourself to constantly be innovative?

Happy Last Post of 2011!!

2011-12-31T20:03:00.001-05:00

Originally titled .. 2 wrongs don't make a right, but 3 rights make a left, and made for Ashley. I think that the inspiration for this caption came from when George Costanza on Seinfeld decided to do everything opposite the way he usually did, so he could end up winning for once.

The picture was just utterly enthralling to me. The black and white nature, and the contrast was very alluring. I think I used a different font for this caption specifically to capture a different mood than what I was usually projecting. Not even sure WHAT font it is, but it works well with the text I created.

I hope that everyone reading this caption has a safe and enjoyable New Year celebration. See you all in 2012 . The Mayans say we have at LEAST another 5-6 months right? LOL

Comic Con will be different this year!

2011-12-29T14:39:00.000-05:00

Comic-Con has always been a good topic when creating TG captions. With the amount of scantily clad and superhero dressed people there, and the cameras taking pictures, it seems inevitable that those photos will become the fantasies of TG captioners. I know a fair amount of comic book stuff, though I mostly read Batman and Sandman when I was younger. Most TG fans though are pretty big Scifi and Comic Book geeks, if I am one to generalize. I guess it comes with the territory.

When I made this caption, it was one of those weekends where Spike TV was playing a non-stop marathon of Star Wars movies, so I blame the whole set on them! The pictures I had saved up for quite a few years .. I had a vague story plot involving them, but I sort of left them behind, as many newer pictures spoke to me in a direct way. Periodically I go back through my old picture directories to see if there are any hidden gems, or things that will work for people I owe captions preference wise.

BabyEmmy likes age regression, and has "boyfriend/hubby to daughter" as a preference. I don't usually do them too much, as I would like models to be at least in the late teens, and always keep them as non-sexual as possible. The 2nd captions' picture would work though, as it is definitely a costume and we have no idea what she looks like underneath, hence we keep a sense of anonymity about who she is under there. Once I had the idea for that, I wanted to tie the 1st picture in somehow. What I wrote works well enough, but the 1st panel is mostly there to set up the second one, which I made sure has some humiliation involved, which is what Emmy requested in her preferences.

One of the things I wanted to mention here that I also mentioned in the original posting on Rachel's Haven was that this was slightly inspired by my own youngling. From the posting, "My daughter used to wear her Vader mask to bed sometimes. Very disconcerting when checking on her at 2 in the morning, especially when she had a cold. At least she never said 'Yippie!'." She isn't a fan of the movies, but really thinks that Darth Vader is a cool villain, and that Luke is a bit of a "wienie".

DISCUSSION QUESTION: How squeamish are you when it comes to making captions regarding preferences you aren't comfortable with? Do you try to work around them, and accommodate the recipient, or do you ask them to give you some ideas that you are more attuned to using? The Haven forbids incestuous captions, and sexual situations involving minors, so I don't have to deal with that, but what other things do you stay away from in reading/creating TG captions?

Ironing Out Our Differences . and Formspring!

2011-12-28T14:25:00.001-05:00

Just another caption that uses "Dust my Credenza" .. I think I've used that in at least 4 to 5 captions since I've started. Not sure WHY, it just seems like a funny word that I want to use OVER and OVER again. Not much to say about the caption .. I mean, how can you make a crappy caption with a source photo like that?

Well, the main suggestion seems to be that I should make a page that talks specifically about certain elements that we discuss in regards to caption creation. I like to think that most of my blog posts focus on that, but there are certain ones that really gets into the nuts and bolts of "how-to" more so than the "why" I do things. I'll see what I can whip up design wise, and probably reach out to Steffiemarie since she seems to have been the first one to have little sections in her blog.

Another suggestion was to make posts more about me personally, and the life of Damien. I am not sure how much people want to hear about my dreadfully boring life (by design .. my life used to be a huge roller-coaster!) so I'll put snippets of it to make sure people get a sense of where I'm coming from when making captions. If anyone has specific questions or areas they wish for me to discuss, I am sure they could post it in the formspring box on the left hand side over there.

Speaking of, here is a question from Nadine, which seems to followup something from another post I made.

What's a made-in caption?

I am assuming this is a mis-understood line in a discussion question from a few days ago .. "What are some other things that strike you when you see them made in captions, that while they aren't officially "wrong" like typos, logic, or plot holes .." There is no such thing as a "made in caption" .. Perhaps I didn't use proper grammar .. but I meant to ask what draws you to see a mistake made in a caption .. that isn't quite a "mistake" as much as perhaps a slight faux pas or something that just doesn't feel right. For instance, I have a bit of a pet peeve for paragraphs that end with ONE word on a line .. just sort of dangling there on its own. I work with publications quite a bit, and I will futz with character spacing to make sure we don't get an orphan word sitting there by itself. Its how I feel about it, and though its not WRONG, it doesn't feel RIGHT for me. Perhaps more of a case of OCD, but it DOES drive me bonkers sometimes!

Next ummm, question comes from jayjay9:

my Question is this, how are you honey?

Thanks for asking. I am a bit beat up over the holidays, but hanging in there. I could use some rest and relaxation that honestly, I will never see or experience. Someday I hope to vanish for a few days with no way of anyone contacting me. Doesn't matter where I go ... even a hotel room with just an internet connection and a spa would do just fine. I've probably not decompressed in years. Traveling never helps either, because I can never actually relax, plus I'd have even more work on my plate when I return. Hopefully I can win the lottery and spend my time wandering around the country, turning men into sexy slutty women.

The last question is still brewing. Simone asked a rather good question that I am still pondering. Probably get to that after the new year.

Oh yeah, if you use Mozilla Firefox, there is a great little add-on that will save anything you fill into comment boxes like these, in case you end up cut off or hit a button .. you won't lose whatever you had written. I can't tell you how many times that has happened to me here on Blogger. I can't remember the name of it right now, but will post it in the comments section when I get a chance.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: How would/should I structure that little section discussed above in regards to caption creation and discussion? Do a blurb with links to the original topic? Post the meat of each individual discussion directly from the original blog post? Other ideas?

Dream a Little (perverted) Dream ..

2011-12-26T21:14:00.001-05:00

This caption was made for Candy (aka One Eyed Pirate) and I wanted to post something that was a bit more hardcore today to balance out all the sweetness that the holidays sometimes causes. LOL Besides, steffiemarie said that SEX SELLS, so I guess I have got to get on the bandwagon!

I don't usually use pictures this explicit, but Candy likes hardcore images and story lines, so occasionally I have to step up and make something i usually wouldn't. Its not that I don't like using penetration and gyno type shots, its that most of them are too generic for me. I need something in the photo that will grab me, and tie the story into the picture. Most "money shots" are generally the same, and I could certainly write the same old, "he turned into a slut and here she is taking it in the ass ... enjoy!"

This was slightly different because I liked the composition of the shot, and her eyes were closed, implying some sort of "Omigod please tell me I'm dreaming!" type situation that people tend to find themselves in from time to time. Also, for the punchline, I needed a certain pose, and this works well in getting from A to B .. the look on her face corresponds well to the beginning, all the way down to her naughty bits, which coincides with the ending.

The irony in this is that I don't tend to make my writing any more or any less perverted regardless of what picture I use, though it does work more forcefully blunt here matched up to the photo. I left the whole things vague .. it COULD be just a dream, or Jeff could have changed in any number of different ways .. but it isn't important in the slightest to what is going on right at that point in time.

Hope everyone had a good holiday filled with family and friends. I did what I could to spread the cheer around to everyone that deserved it, and even for a few that didn't deserve it! I wandered around the internet looking and commenting on different TG blogs ... which was fun because I don't do nearly enough of that. Found some fun things to look at. Haven't made any new captions, and probably won't before the New Year, as I have various peoples floating around the house with vacation time. I should be at least posting though on this blog, either from here at home or at work.

I've also sent out the Christmas Goose pictures to those that asked. Check your email!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: I've noticed that quite a few people are doing some overhauls on their TG blogs, like new backgrounds, pages that explain things, and other things to make it spiffier. Do you think this site needs anything added to it (other than tags for Feb 11-June 11)? What could I do to make this blog more Dee-lightful?

Decks the Halls with Lots of Holly!

2011-12-24T01:10:00.000-05:00

Well, its technically Christmas Eve, as its after Midnight here in this time zone. I figured I would post a BLOG EXCLUSIVE .. I like saying that! LOL I don't really create many captions that aren't for anyone specific. This one came to mind when I saw the picture. Fruitcake has become a Christmas joke nowadays here in America, as people don't seem to know how to make them, and its an acquired taste to be sure. I'm pretty sure the photo is not showing an actual fruitcake, but hey, suspension of disbelief and all that, right? Everyone needs a weird aunt that is probably into the Dark Arts, right? That keeps us on our toes, probably painted fire engine red!

I trust that everyone will have a great holiday season, whether it was spinning a dreidel, airing your grievances around a Festivus pole, calling out the corners at the Winter Solstice, celebrating the arrival of baby Jesus, bowing down the commercial God of Santa Claus, or whatever you do when Kwanzaa arrives. I hope all those you care about have a safe and secure holiday season as well.

I am not sure I'll be posting again before Monday, as Sunday will be a huge travel day with the Mentia Familia visiting most of the "spousal" relatives that live multiple hours away. Not looking forward to the drive up and back, but I do look forward to the Prime Rib. Her family really knows how to celebrate deliciously!

If I do post before then, it might be the entry I posted for last year's Christmas Caption Contest (or was it 2009?) that was relatively tasteless, hence my absolute joy in making it! Depends on how much Egg Nog and Meatballs I consume at the Christmas Eve parties we hit tomorrow evening.

DISCUSSION TOPIC: If you want to leave holiday messages, please go right ahead. As a gift to those who caption, leave a message here, and if you want, I'll give you a photo or two I have saved on my hard drive that I think you might find useful in making a caption. What better than me sliding a hand in your stocking and giving you a gift?!? Just make note in the comment that you want the Christmas Goose!

A Subtle and Tasteful Makeover

2011-12-22T15:22:00.002-05:00

This was created for a relatively newbie on the Haven, The Color Blue .. and I really liked her preferences, especially since some of them have meshed with some things I've really be into lately. Tasty bits like hypnosis, compulsions, and embarassment/humiliation. Also, over the last week or two, I have thought about the whole "turned into a drag queen" thing in relation to the other tasty bits I just mentioned.

I tried to make a caption that would fill some of those hotspots. I really wish I had the skill to write stories with those plot points, but honestly my ADHD kicks in, and I get semi-bored. Plus, my desire is always to edit things down to their bare essence, and details can matter when it comes to a full on story.

Its also how I feel about this caption. While its good, I don't think I put out everything I wanted to, and ended up shortchanging the plot somehow. This is one of those times where multiple panels probably would have helped me tell the story I wanted to tell. However, I did NOT want to have a first panel with a guy on it, because we all tend to put ourselves in the captions, and seeing a guy that looks NOTHING like us would be terribly disarming. If I had another picture of the girl in the photo, I definitely would use it, especially if it was without the wig. That way I could carve out a bit more of the back story.

I'm glad that Mina liked it, with this response:

Oh simply delightful!! Definitely right up my alley. I've never been a redhead before but I must say it looks quite nice and the drag queen circus clown had me laughing.

I still think I could have given her something so much better.

One a blog note ... I should be posting either tomorrow or on Christmas Eve. I have a blog exclusive caption (depending on if the 25 captions of Christmas has a Christmas Eve entry) and then probably nothing until the middle of next week, with a few postings during that holiday week to keep people amused!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Should I be beating myself up over this? Is it because I am using preferences that I personally like to create a caption for someone else?

Watch Out for the DRM!

2011-12-20T12:03:00.001-05:00

Nick/Lanna is a big anime fan, and likes to have anime art in captions. I wouldn't really know Sailor Moon from Popeye the Sailor Man however, so I was a bit limited in what I could write. I do know some anime pirates, mostly because they don't think its right that they should have to pay 30 bucks for 2-4 episodes per disc. Figured I could use that information to make some sort of caption and still make it interesting.

Even better, I could actually work with her preferences. Among them were:

I'm very polite, try not to break rules, but may insult people with out noticing.
I don't mind being with either a guy or a girl, either before or after transformation.
I have a girlfriend who is also bi, and doesn't care what gender I am, she also loves TF as much as me XD
If there are multiple people in the cap, I like to be with my GF, she doesn't mind (actually enjoys) being turned into a guy, so if I'm in a picture with a guy, please make it her ^_^

When I get something like that, it makes me want to include his girlfriend. What better way to keep a relationship running well than being able to share something like TG captions?

I know that "The Ring" was a movie that had a movie being a force for change, specifically the viewers dying within 7 days of watching. From there, it didn't take much of a leap that the anime Nick watched would have the same sort of effect, though only through the copy protection scheme (DRM is something that is supposed to stop piracy/bootlegging of copy-written works like movies and music.). Having his girlfriend watch it first made sure that they BOTH would change gender.

This caption also shows what I had discussed in the previous blog post about how I tend to make captions when the picture source is in widescreen format. Instead of floating the text IN the picture, I put the picture right where it should be in the time line, and wrote the story around it.

I would like to post every weekday this week, but it all depends on how the work schedule plays out. I was able to get most of the work needed to be done before Christmas already done .. it just depends on when everyone else here in the office gets me THEIR data, so I can finish MY work.

I'm holding out hope that some people will come up with more ideas for the discussion question I posted yesterday, and I will repost the actual discussion question below.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What are some other things that strike you when you see them made in captions, that while they aren't officially "wrong" like typos, logic, or plot holes .. but things that make the caption not nearly as polished as it could be?

The reason I'm asking is I'd like to see if we could whip up a guide to "So you made some captions? Now how do you make the jump to the next level?" type FAQ.

Getting Support from a Family Member .. Sorta!

2011-12-19T12:48:00.001-05:00

The picture totally wrote the entire caption for me. The pose and look on the model's face said, "help me please?" to me, and it didn't have the blunt sexuality that many "girls grabbing/cupping their boobs" seem to possess. There was an innocence to the expression and her face itself. Also, there was some soft boyish features present in the face and the hair, which made it seem like she wasn't QUITE fully changed yet. Its not often when you get a gift like this in picture form .. all that I described AND a wonderfully kick ass body to use in a caption.

When I make captions, I tend to use tall pictures (aka height is 2:1 ratio or so to width) so I can run a text box on the side. Pictures like this are harder for me, because I don't want to edit a photo this delicious, and the extraneous background lends credence to it being his sister's room. When I get pictures that are wider than tall, I tend to do one of two things.

One way is to have a more linear arrangement, where the picture goes exactly where it fits in the story time line. An example would be the first text section is the guy arguing about going to see a chick flick with her, and that she should find someone to go that would appreciate it more. Then I would put in a picture of a girl with tears running down her face. Then, I'd end it with the transformed boyfriend watching the movie with his girlfriend, and find out he's crying, not because of the movie, but because she told him that he'll be stuck like that for the next month. (Hey, I think I just wrote a caption on the fly! Wooo!) See THIS blog post for the style I just described.

The other way to handle it is to do what I did here. Make the picture the entire caption and place all the text floating on top of the photo. I have no problems doing this, although, when you go this route, you really need to either go ALL narrative, or ALL dialog. This style also is best used when text is sparse. It doesn't look balanced when there is a bunch of small test being dominated by a picture like the one in the caption above. Since I had set this up as a conversation between brother and sister, their conversation could just be banter, since its obvious they know each other very well. That led me to an economy of dialog, and if I recall, I think I actually made the text size bigger when I was done, since there were still some dead space for it to fit into without overwhelming the image.

One of the things I've been thinking about lately is negative space, especially since a few people have asked me to critique their captions. I do my best to not only trim the image to what I feel is necessary, but that I will never leave a block of text box empty. If what I've written is too short, I'll either try to expand what I've written with some extra adjectives and more detail to the change .. or enlarge the text itself, and center it so that there would be two smaller spaces instead of one giant one. Its probably the number one thing I notice about newbies when they start making captions. Often the picture choice is good and the stories are at least competent, but there's about 2 inches at the top of the picture that could've been chopped (mostly blue sky) and they have about 2 inches at the bottom of the text box that are blank. If they'd chopped the sky, the picture and text box would be perfectly balanced!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What are some other things that strike you when you see them made in captions, that while they aren't officially "wrong" like typos, logic, or plot holes .. but things that make the caption not nearly as polished as it could be? As a start, I would nominate the resizing of images incorrectly .. by either enlarging them so much they are blurry, or resizing them so that the proportions are off (squished girls or elongated features) so they look like fun-house mirrors.

The reason I'm asking is I'd like to see if we could whip up a guide to "So you made some captions? Now how do you make the jump to the next level?" type FAQ.

The Pink Bimbo ... with a Twist!

2011-12-15T17:22:00.001-05:00

Have a few Formspring "questions" to answer soon, and possibly a blog exclusive caption. Depends on if I want to post it here or gift it to the next Haven eZine which should be coming out in January. At that point in time, I'll also be able to post my contribution to the 1st eZine, since the 6 month exclusivity will be passed.

The caption above was made for Sammie/Serena. I was purposely trying to stay away from a magical caption, and she has preferences that fit both a realistic approach and one that is more abracadabra. I like these type of stories more now than I used to, and I am more comfortable writing them. Compulsion plotlines make me tingle as it is, and having instincts run counter-intuitive to what they used to be, leaving the protagonist on auto-pilot, yet still aware of the way they are acting, will probably never get old in my opinion.

I tried not to telegraph the twist at the end. The whole caption plot came to me as soon as I saw the picture. The ending came first, and I had to work my way through back to the beginning. There was a bit of pruning, mostly in what Nate had done, and the process of becoming the picture. If it went too long, I feared it would lose its emotional impact. I imagine that Belladonna could write a really good story, just by stretching out my skeletal plot and detailing the downfall. I didn't want a full story though, I just wanted a visceral "HERE YA GO!"

I'm glad to see that the views are picking up here. College semesters are over I assume, and people have time to look around the TG blogosphere perhaps? Glad everyone is looking at least!

What I posted in the previous blog entry still applies!

If you have a TF/TG caption blog and DON'T belong to the Haven, but would like to trade captions, give me a shout-out below in the comments. I didn't realize there were that many people doing captions that weren't a part of the Haven. 99 percent of my captions are trades with others. I always focus better on plots and things when I have someone, and their preferences, in mind. Otherwise my brain is too scatter shot and my ADD kicks in (and people wonder why I can be concise when creating .. its really a lack of focus! LOL)

DISCUSSION QUESTION: If you had the chance to give a TG Christmas wish ... would it be for you to have your wish come true .. or for all of your online/real life TG friends to have THEIR wishes become a reality?

Kidnappers can really co-ordinate colors!

2011-12-13T18:49:00.002-05:00

I am so glad that I found the story I was looking for.Its called "Andrew" and was written by Grimbo. Funny thing is, after reading it, I think my mind had improved the story as I replayed it in my mind over the years. Doesn't hold up as well as I thought, especially with some of the writers of TG captions and stories I read now. Maybe someone will take that story as an idea and really improve on it!

I made the above caption for Dalene three years ago. My original file was sort of messed up, so I re-jiggered it to make it more readable. I made it for a 2 for 1 deal that she offered, and I'm not sure if she supplied the picture or not. Either way, I'm pretty happy with it .. and it falls in line with one of the first captions I made Alectra .. that of the whole Stockholm Syndrome, and the breakdown of the psyche over tramatic things. Here is what I wrote originally:

MERRY CHRISTMAS .. now SUBMIT TO ME!! Hee hee!

Enjoy the rapture babe!

What I posted in the previous blog entry still applies!

If you have a TF/TG caption blog and DON'T belong to the Haven, but would like to trade captions, give me a shout-out below in the comments. I didn't realize there were that many people doing captions that weren't a part of the Haven. 99 percent of my captions are trades with others. I always focus better on plots and things when I have someone, and their preferences, in mind. Otherwise my brain is too scatter shot and my ADD kicks in (and people wonder why I can be concise when creating .. its really a lack of focus! LOL)

Lastly, I wanted to post one of my favorite Christmas songs by one of my favorite bands. Figured some of my followers might enjoy it, and it is certainly apropos of some people's holiday season I'm sure!

My First Xmas as a Woman by The Vandals

Its so catchy, you'll be walking down the street humming to yourself, "Chop it off, Chop it off, My penis, chop it off!"

DISCUSSION QUESTION: I love offbeat Christmas songs, and have a ton of things like "Pink Flamingos" by Jerry Springer, or "Fuck Christmas" by Fear. I am hoping my Dee-mented followers will have a few suggestions I haven't seen yet. Whatcha got for me?

Nursing a Curse .. Just milking it right now!

2011-12-12T12:03:00.000-05:00

This will be a somewhat fragmented post. I am trying to make sure I post 2-3 times a week. I don't always have an elaborate discussion worked up, so I post when (a) I have time, and (b) when I have something to discuss. Making this blog is much harder than actually making captions.

People are always asking for pregnancy captions. Here is one I made a few weeks ago for a 2 for 1 deal offered by Chelsea Baker. As I described in the posting at the time:

I wanted to make something up right away before I forgot (that happens much more than you think!) so I puzzled quickly until I came up with something that I don't think gets enough caption love. For women, there is something that happens to them that they can't describe when they are involved with what the caption talks about, and guys NEVER get to experience it.

From seeing it live, and from hearing about it with other mothers I know, its a weirdly erotic, but innocent, sensation to breast feed. Even weirder is that certain emotions, or any baby crying, can bring forth a veritable fountain of breast milk. Guys really have nothing to compare it to and I think its interesting that an emotional feeling can bring about such a physical reaction like that.

A few side notes:

I am looking for an old story, that I seem to have lost from my hard drive. It was posted MANY years ago, perhaps on the original TSA mailing list, or perhaps the TG mailing list that Sapphire had started. The plot was basically the following, "Guy in a clothing store pisses off the witch working there. He has to escape the store, and if any female clothing touches him, the corresponding body part of his changes into a female (ie if gloves touch him, his hands become female.) If he can escape, he will become a man again, but of course, that doesn't happen." IF you have a copy/link to the story, give me a holler. I wish I remembered the name and author, but I honestly suck about that!

If you have a TF/TG caption blog and DON'T belong to the Haven, but would like to trade captions, give me a shout-out below in the comments. I didn't realize there were that many people doing captions that weren't a part of the Haven. 99 percent of my captions are trades with others. I always focus better on plots and things when I have someone, and their preferences, in mind. Otherwise my brain is too scatter shot and my ADD kicks in (and people wonder why I can be concise when creating .. its really a lack of focus! LOL)

Something I am pretty good at is helping people that are having issues with writing blocks. If you ever have a problem trying to figure out where to go next, or want to blast past some creative issues, let me know, and I'll see what I can do.

All of these things you can put in the comments section. Hopefully, I'll have something more posted in the next few days, including an exclusive blog caption.

A Little Drop of ... Poison?

2011-12-09T15:18:00.000-05:00

Wanted to post something for people to look at this weekend. I'll try to look at the links in the previous post and add some to the side for my viewing pleasure. Keep them coming!! No need to stop just because there is a newer blog post!

This is the other caption I made while listening to Tom Waits. I had the picture for Chelsea, but hadn't the real concrete idea until I got to the lyrics for "A Little Drop of Poison" which seemed to go really well with the image. I didn't want to go the way most people would though with the picture and the song title. Figured I would work around it. Witches, especially those in the past, were often just herbalist/chemists, so went with that. Since the picture has a cat (familiar) and tea cups (Chelsea is from the UK) .. I just went with what works, and I think it did work. Sometimes I like to make guys lives better when they turn into women. I guess I have a soft touch occasionally!

DISCUSSION: How often do you just take what the image gives you, versus trying to stretch around and give the story something that is slightly off the beaten path? For me, I wanted to do it here because Chelsea had given me a great caption and I wanted to make the capback something more special.

Santa Panties ... Very Comfortable!

2011-12-06T11:45:00.001-05:00

First off, I would like to thank everyone who voted in the Haven's November 2011 contest. I ended up winning the whole ball of wax, for the first time I was more than just the bride's maid! It feels great, because I know I'm not the best at any one particular aspect of captioning, but I like to think I'm pretty consistent when it comes to quality and overall presentation. Having been in the final two for a contest for four years in a row shows that people tend to agree with me in my assumption.

I made the above caption for a little project that Terri started on the Haven called "The 25 caps of Christmas" and it was starting out slow. She'd PMed a few of the admins who caption asking if they'd help contribute, and more so, to help promote the idea and get it moving. Its pretty much a TG version of an Advent calendar.

At first, I didn't think I'd have time right away, but no one else had made anything, and I didn't want it to die a quick yet painful death, so I whipped up something on the quick. If I'm anything, I'm rapid from start to finish. I had a stash of Xmas pictures I hadn't capped yet, and just grabbed one, made a background for it, and started writing.

There's been debates about Holiday Trees vs Christmas Trees and saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" so I figured I could do a quick riff on that, with how the spirit is in the giving. From there, it didn't take too much to bring the TG aspect into it, with some naughtiness as well. There is a tradmark "Dee" zinger at the end that just brings a smile to my face. I always wondered why feminine hygiene products always have "baby powder" as a scent instead of things like "New Car Smell".

Anyway, I made that caption in about 12 minutes, and Terri had a caption for Day 2. There are still some dates available if you are a captioner. See the link for more details. If you just like to look at captions, go to the link and check out creations made by famous captioners like: Dee, Argus, Petra, Alectra, Martha, Totalditz, and hopefully many others!

DISCUSSION QUESTION. Things have been a bit slow on some of the TG blogs I follow. I need more links to follow! If you are following this blog and HAVE a blog of your own, please plug it in the comments. That way I can add you to the side column. Having followers cross pollinating can be a good thing, and I enjoy finding things I haven't seen before. If you know of any blog sites I may like, post them in the comment section as well!

The Irony is Pretty .. Ironic (Please Vote!)

2011-12-03T12:06:00.001-05:00

Well, I've won a Haven contest in 2008, 2009, and 2010 (2nd place actually, but close enough!) and I haven't done many contests this year. When I realized I could keep the streak alive, I worked hard to make a caption that I thought conveyed the concept quite well, but with a twist that was fun and ingenious.

The rules are the following:

Transformations have to lead to an age change.
That included both directions: age regression and age progression
There's no limit for the highest age, do what you like here
That doesn't apply for the other direction. First of all stay within the Haven Rules! We decided that all girls below 16 should be G-rated. Between 16 and 18 you can include R-rated pictures and above 18 it's X-rated or higher.
The focus of the story should be really about the new age or the age difference. Just making a guy 2 years younger as a girl wouldn't focus on the age change since this is hardly a change. So beside the gender change the age change should be mainly the center of the story.

I think my caption is a good fit for the rules.

Now I need a last minute push to see if I can end up in a winning spot. I certainly don't mind coming in 2nd place, but I'd like to keep my streak going. if I do, it shows that I am consistently good enough to almost win LOL Hell, if I win, I might ask to switch the rankings so I get 2nd place AGAIN!

So please head on down to Rachel's Haven, and vote early, and often! The link is here : http://www.rachelshaven.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=40&topic=48890.0

Voting ends tomorrow morning at 6 am EST I believe.

Yeah, I know this is cheesy and reeks of the movie "Election" but I'm sure some others are rallying support as well. There are many good captions posted for you to look at, so just remember to VOTE! Even for people that aren't me!

The Retail Price of Womanhood

2011-11-30T18:28:00.000-05:00

Something I created for Polecat yesterday. Figured I would post something really fresh and new, since it was currently one of the most recent ones I have made.

I think its pretty straightforward in narrative, and has the zinger that he's not going back to being a guy just quite yet. It looks like he's going to end up learning all about the inequities that could be associated with being female.

I saw the picture and really admired how awesome that bra truly is, and the comfort that it must provide the wearer. Knowing that my daughter has issues with cheap bras, I sort of wrote it from her perspective, but using me as a character. If she had "Dee" powers, I'm sure she'd have used them the same way as presented in the caption.

Quality is something to be looked for when it comes to things for women. Guys can usually get by with bulk socks and underwear, basic pants and shirts, even shoes (unless you are talking about work boots for people that actually work!) whereas women's footwear can hurt the wearers toes, arch, and heel; bras can pinch, bind, and stab; undies can sag or crawl up their crack; nylons can run, etc ..

Other than the work boots I mentioned above, or perhaps stain-resistant clothing .. I can't really think of many things that guys buy strictly for comfort, forgoing cheaper, off-made brands. Perhaps it is because I'm frugal and poor! Maybe we have some rich guys out there that will swear they can't wear anything that isn't silk shirts or 9k thread count sheets, but most guys I know skimp on money, and don't lose too much on the quality end of the deal.

Anyway, back to where I started. A few people on the Haven were commenting on a part of the caption I didn't really see, and I want to know if people are reading it the same way, and that I missed something. Here are a few of the comments:

Interesting revenge cap. Nice job.

Oh Dee, Oh Dee, You are a vengeful little bitch, aren't you? I love you!

Its always great to get feedback. My question is, did the caption seem to you that Dee was trying to get revenge on her hubby? I was looking at is as a way to have a "teaching moment" more so than an actual punishment. Perhaps using this persuasive sales pitch would change his mind as their both shared a harsh experience then a positive reinforcement (aka badly made bra, then upgraded to a well designed, pretty one.) The same could be said at the end once they are both walking in much better footwear (he'll definitely walk a mile in her shoes that way!) I did leave it open-ended as to when/if he changes back into a man so that the recipient and reader will fill in their own blanks, and foreshadowed him thinking a bit like a woman when he mentioned 'his boobs'.

I made this caption 1000 pixels wide, as discussed in a prior blog entry. It is my first at that format size, and I made the decision after reading what others had posted. This made for a good test run, since the source picture was HUGE! I was able to shrink it down, but still have more picture that I usually do when I was doing 850 pixels wide.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Did it seem that Dee was being vengeful? Or was it more of a Rorschach type caption where people can read whatever they like into it, where you will find exactly what you like to read, in between the lines? Do you like the somewhat bigger caption size?

The Acting Bug ... Pilgrim Bitches in Heat!

2011-11-23T22:39:00.000-05:00

Something I wrote a few years ago when I was messing around with Comic Life. The best part is how I followed it up with the second panel which is right below this paragraph, once I finish typing.

Truthfully, I think I started writing the first caption, and the play on Miles Standish just seemed too juicy to not use in a more salacious way, which led to "PILGRIM BITCHES IN HEAT"!!!

My original posting to SassyLass was this:

I took time off from the pleasures of a college assignment in Javascript to make you a joyous Thankgiving type of caption.

You just know that the girls did your make up using a Mayflower Compact!!! HAHAHAHAHA OY VEY!!!

The "typo" in the 1st box is deliberate ... Coloinial ... it's called foreshadowing bitches!! Any others are the fault of me and me alone.

Hope everyone enjoys this caption, as you WILL learn things, like there really was a John Lancemore on the Mayflower who was a laborer for Christopher Martin.

Who'd have thunk that the Pilgrims had some porno quality names? Hope you like this goofy yet fun Thanksgiving caption. I don't think I'll be posting on Turkey Day, and if I do post on Black Friday, it wouldn't be too early since I'll be having a few laughs with some social mischief in the stores and in the parking lots. Hopefully no one will pull a gun on me ... why so serious?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Vent away people! Any topics you want me to cover? Any genres I haven't posted lately that needs a little love thrown its way by yours truly? What alcohol should I move onto next (currently drinking SoCo and pineapple juice)?

Yours, Mine, and Ours .. I WANT HALF!

2011-11-23T00:15:00.001-05:00

Been a few days since I last posted, and it seems the blog has tumbleweeds wandering through it. Not sure if I am not getting good enough discussion questions, or perhaps they are too hard or demanding?

Anyway, this is one of my favorites. I just love the idea behind the caption, and I wish someone like Belladonna would take it and make a full fledged story out of it. Who says there can't be a Divorces R' Us around to help out couples looking to split their assets/ Here is what I wrote around the time the caption was posted:

99 percent of the time I have the pictures 1st, then write stories for them later. I try to save pictures for people that I think they'd go well with, and considering some of the preferences of Ron, I had this one saved for awhile before I came up with the plot above. I was chatting with a friend online that has been having marital issues AND was looking at this picture at the same time, and VIOLA! I've got a foundation for a caption!

Of course, the whole Eddie Murphy routine, "HALF! I WANT HALF!" was going through my mind when I wrote this.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Turkey Day and Black Friday afterwards, and that you and your family is safe, secure, and out of harm's way.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: I know its come up before, but what do you think the perfect width for a caption should be? I'm wondering because I was at 850 as a max for a long time, due to the Haven restrictions, but its since been lifted. I'm thinking that most people have widescreen monitors by now. What is your screen resolution set to, and should I increase mine to 1024 pixels or so? Also, feel free to comment on the captions!

I Played by the Rules! .. Happy Life Day!

2011-11-17T14:56:00.000-05:00

This caption is another storyline that I had roaming around my noggin for quite a while, and I had emailed it to myself a number of months back. Its a basic plot point that some TV shows and movies use as a device .. a boss is retiring or leaving and is finding a replacement. There is usually some sort of contest based on sales or whatever, and the candidates are pitted against each other with every sort of dirty trick, etc .. being played.

After seeing all the shenanigans going on with government and big business, I wanted to turn this plot point on its head. Even now, as I watch all the presidential candidates debating, its amazing how self righteous they all seem to portray themselves. I don't think that anyone in power has a clean sheet, as the higher you rise, the more dirty your laundry tends to be. The person most people think of as the worst president of the last 50 years (I'm discounted Bush Jr because there hasn't been enough time yet to really look back) was Jimmy Carter, who most people would also probably say was the nicest and most virtuous of the presidents of the last half century.

So then, what we have here is a "good guy to good girl" caption, which is somewhat rare to see. The other thing about this caption that is somewhat rare is its one of the 2 percent I write that isn't driven by a picture. I could have used any number of business oriented pictures for the caption and it probably would not have affected the plot much at all. Sammie likes redheads, so that is why I used this particular photo.

On an unrelated note, today is Life Day. so make sure wear your red robe and wave your crystal ball things up high. For those that aren't sure what that means, here is a quick little video to help you out.

HAPPY LIFE DAY!!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: How much of your morals and world views do you bring into your captions? Is it easy to fake a different philosophy when creating for others that don't hold the same values that you do? Have you ever seen the Star Wars Holiday Special?

"Chemical Warfare" .. a guest caption!

2011-11-15T18:49:00.001-05:00

I ended up with a question in my formspring from Simone .. well it wasn't exactly a question, but more of a followup to a question I had asked her on her blog about a week ago.

Turn About is Fair Play - Which of the captions I've done for you is your favorite and why?

Certainly is a fair question, so I went back into the archives. The one above is probably my favorite one.

Why? For quite a few reasons actually. First off, it has a pretty good sense of humor. secondly, I look pretty friggin' hot. I have a gas mask that almost looks like that, and almost the same pentacle (though I'm not sure where it is now.)

Probably the main reason I like it though is due to its meta-ness. Its a caption for the REAL Damien/Dee, not for the Damien character that turns into Dee in captions on the Haven. Its the wink-and-nod to the existence of the Haven, and brings it to a hyper-reality. The plot mentions other people we know in the Haven, and references Simone's travels to Asia for business reasons. Its just fun all around.

The best part is that you don't really need to know any of the in-jokes for people to enjoy it.

Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you ...

2011-11-10T19:02:00.001-05:00

... just happy to see me? I was chatting the other day with Simone, making a caption or two, but mostly just looking for pictures ... either to make an instant caption, or store on the hard drive for later use. When I saw this photo, the punchline came immediately. I didn't think it would really fit the preferences for anyone in particular, so I knew I could just write it as straight forward as it needed to be.

I think an alternative title could be, "A Gun Moll at a Gun Mall" but I could probably hear your collective groans over that one without need for amplification!

So, anyway, this caption became a "Dee-lusions of Grandeur" Exclusive. I need to see how many others I've only done for the blog. I know I did the "10 Commandments" one. I think I need to officially make am "blog exclusive" tag ... and actually post a few of them occasionally, just to keep people on their toes!

The last thought about this caption is that it seems like a lost episode of "The Adventures of Letterman!" that appeared on the original Electric Company on PBS during the 70's and early 80's.

Electric Company also had the song "Silent E" which would change things just with one letter.

So, to recap ... letters are much more powerful than one can imagine!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Well, how about imagining how powerful letters CAN be? Got any ideas that could be turned into a caption .. where ONE letter can make a complete difference in someone's life? I don't mean like an M becoming an F on a driver's license, but something along the lines of the videos,

C'mon in .. the water's fine!

2011-11-09T12:21:00.002-05:00

Don't think I'd done any Bikini Beach captions before, so this was a new arena to work in. I remember most of the stories when they originally came out, and it might be the 2nd oldest TG universe (other than Spells R Us) that is still being used from time to time.

Please read/view the caption first before continuing to read this blog entry.

I am not sure if someone wrote a story that mirrors the one I wrote here, but it wouldn't shock me. If there was such a thing as Bikini Beach, I would think this might happen a lot. Its what came to mind when I saw this picture, thinking about how "make a wish" kids often want to spend time in the water with dolphins, and how gentle they can be with people with medical issues (the compassion is amazing, considering that its been proven that dolphins can/will rape.)

Any problems I encountered with making this were of the .. how far should I go in dealing with something serious that has had to effect almost every viewer of the caption? I wanted to put some levity in, and show a new start .. and show apprehension ... all without making it a complete and utter downer.

What I did was try to put everything the reader needed to know in subtle hints, as the last thing I wanted to do was make it cloying and heavy handed. Making a story and setting up the "read between the lines" is not the easiest thing to do. I'm hoping that even though I left it vague, most readers know what was going on (the results were probably debilitating at best, and possibly terminal), and why Tom's wife did what she did.

I made this for Shauna because she's had some medical issues, and thought she'd appreciate the thought behind it. Its always hard to feel your way through a topic like this, but I figured she would be up for it.

This caption would not be very successful (and I am proud of it, trust me) if it wasn't for the picture. That photo sells the new life and opportunity that Shauna has been presented with, and it, in my mind at least, balances the seriousness of the initial situation, not only makes the ending more lighthearted, but also showing a shot of redemption for both of them.

I know why people don't often attempt to do captions or stories like this. Then again, I'm not like most people and want to see what I can do when I'm inspired. There isn't a Bikini Beach out there, but there are REAL organizations out there that try to fulfill the wishes of those less in less fortunate positions. Please make sure you remember them this year during the holiday season. Sometimes the smallest acts of kindness can have the biggest impact.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: How did your initial reaction to the caption match up with the discussion? Did I do a good enough job conveying what I had tried to lay out? I really don't mind people venting that they don't like this caption, it's too depressing, etc ... Tell me how you feel.

Something just came up .. Oh Shit! It's me!

2011-11-08T14:33:00.001-05:00

I keep forgetting to email myself a caption I made the other day that didn't particularly fit anyone's preferences, so I was going to post it as an exclusive to my blog. Sooooo, I will have to wait until I can actually get it emailed to myself if I plan on posting it while at work.

Anyway, Jennifer had a great question in the comments:

Is there a specific genre that you associate with a certain fetish? or is all fair game? For example, do you prefer your pantyhose fetish to always have a hypnosis theme?

I don't mind mixing and matching, but there are some things that just seem to line up better. For instance, for those that have a fetish for latex ("wave to the audience Alectra!") I think that it goes well with submission and domination. It also works well with bodysuits.

I am a big fan of pantyhose/stockings. I don't think that there is any real definitive genre where it fits best. I know it REALLY fits well in a office/work place setting or a fancy dress / prom / wedding setting .. regardless of whether its a magical / technological caption or story .. or in a realistic way for cross-dressing subjects as evidenced by the above caption for Alectra.

I am a fan of hypnosis captions, and am a big fan of pantyhose. Something involving both is probably bound to nail at least one of those buttons, and hopefully many more that go along with other preferences. Both those preferences go well though with acting extremely or 'over the top' feminine and some humiliation too. I guess that I am lucky that what I am into keeps my preferences easy to caption.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What are some things that don't seem to match up very well? Perhaps we can get some mix-matched ideas that I/we might be able to work through and overcome whatever issues we think keep them from being compatible.Which things really go well together that I haven't mentioned up above?

The Piano has been Drinking .. not me!

2011-11-04T15:22:00.001-04:00

I made this caption while listening to Tom Waits, and it influenced/guided the story. I was going for the feel of Tom's 70's output, which was the sleazy alternative side of Frank Sinatra's legendary output of the 50's, with the sad sack in the bar at closing time. Ron likes women that have been transformed and are still wearing some sort of masculine attire, so when I found this picture, all the main parts lined up perfectly.

The same day I did this one, I also did one for "Little Drop of Poison" .. but that is a post for another time!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Anything you'd like to see posted next? I don't want just a "BBW" or something like that. I want a particular genre BUT with a specific question in regards to which one you would like to see.

Lifestyles of the Broke and Fabulous!

2011-11-02T21:00:00.001-04:00

Well, I had this idea for a LONG TIME. When I come up with a snippet or idea for a caption, and I'm at work, I'll email that little nugget to myself, so that I can look at it when I have the time. If I don't write them down, I'll usually forget about them later (which is why sometimes I give them to others when I'm chatting in IM's ...either they can use them or I will forget and those ideas will just die.)

I keep them all in the same email .. called story ideas. Not all of them will be used, but I do ponder each one. I hadn't looked at the email list in quite some time, so I figured there had to be a few things there I could use for captions that I owe to others. I had a good 10 or so to choose from, and I think I made 3 of them within the last week or so, including the one I posted with the Airplane references for Caitlyn.

My only problem with doing it this way is .. I don't normally have pictures to fill out the captions, so these captions take more time to make. I have to hunt around, either on websites, or rummaging through my photo folders. I don't necessarily mind doing it this way, as the ideas tend to be already fleshed out, and while I'm looking, I will always hit a picture that leads to another caption. For instance, I think I made 2 captions while trying to find a photo for this one.

The reason I had trouble finding a picture was that I wanted a certain look, not only of a model and what she was wearing, but the look on her face. This photo HAD that look, though she wasn't as dressed up as I wished she was, but went along with it anyway. That means I had to alter what I had quickly jotted down in my email. Here is what I had originally:

Look TIFFANY babe, we are friggin broke! We can’t afford to do that, and the bank is not going to let us borrow against the house, since the property values have dropped these last few years.

How can we have no money? I make a good salary as a App Developer and the house is all paid off. Don’t we have a few bank accounts we can tap?

Ummm, TIMOTHY? How do you think you were able to pay for hair plugs, those big boobs, or the constant trips to the salon to keep your nails fresh? I don’t mind you being a sissy and all that. Hell, it is a bit of a turn on, but you are slutting your way into the poorhouse.

Well, what are we going to do?

I think you know what you need to do. Just head out to the corner of Watkins and Dover in that outfit, and I’m sure someone will pay you what your worth. And don’t come back until the car payment is taken care of!

I didn't realize how much I had used of the original idea until I just pasted it up here. I mostly changed a bit of dialog to fit the picture better, and edited the content a bit for brevity's sake. TIFFANY and TIMOTHY were just filler names until I could decide who would be receiving it.

I really liked the idea of a guy being a sissy, and his wife complaining about the bills involved. Usually in sitcoms its the other way around, with the husband complaining about the amount of shoes she buys or the new dress she bought. I wanted to flip that around. Beauty is NOT cheap, regardless of how most TG captions and stories lead you to believe!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: How do you deal with ideas that come to you while you are not in a mode to caption? Do you have a text file, email the idea to yourself, jot it down on paper or a sticky note on your cell phone? Are you able to actually remember them if you don't do something to jog your memory later?

Happy Halloween Everyone!

2011-10-31T20:57:00.003-04:00

Hope everyone is having a pleasant Halloween, watching the little goblins wander around begging for candy, and all the other fun associated with such a ghoulishly wonderful holiday.

Figure I'll leave you a little musical treat as well. Michale Graves (formerly of the Misfits) doing a compelling acoustic version of one of the best songs from Famous Monsters.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Is it just me, or did there seem to be a dearth of Halloween themed TG captions this year? I mean, with all the various angles, is everyone burnt out on the idea of Halloween being a great tool for stories and captions?

Happy Halloween .. a few days early!

2011-10-29T18:38:00.001-04:00

It was 70 degrees a few days ago, now we are expecting a few inches of snow! My daughter is curled up with her boyfriend watching Saw IV right now, eating popcorn. A perfect pursuit on a Saturday evening right before Halloween. I'm not too happy about the boyfriend part of the equation, but at least she's not wearing a slutty costume right now at a party somewhere! Slutty Halloween costumes are supposed to be for ME, not her!

This is the costume she wants to wear for Halloween!

I am pretty sure that everyone that reads this blog knows that I'm a huge fan of Halloween. When I was growing up, my house was always the one that went the extra mile in giving out "tricks" along with treats (which was a piece of candy and a pencil.) After my mother died, other people in the neighborhood took up the mantel, so even 17 years later, there is always at least one house having fun, whether its a haunted garage (with sink that has bloody water flowing through it) or a campfire with scary stories being told by a wizard or witch. Because of this, I always go back to the old neighborhood and hand out candy with my dad. Even though we don't do anything special, it is something that links us back to my mom. Some of the parents still tell us about how we scared the hell out of THEM when they were their children's age!

I love Halloween, but I wouldn't want it to be Halloween everyday. I think it would tend to cheapen it somehow. I like it being SPECIAL! The first time I walk into a store and see a Halloween display, or hear commercials for a haunted train or hayride ... Getting ready for a horror movie marathon, or creating a Halloween mix CD for the car ... Catching good deals on candy, fishnets, and other things like skulls, headstones, weird flavors of Jones soda.

I am not sure I'll be posting on the actual date of Halloween. Depends on how busy I am at work. If I don't, I hope that everyone that reads this, and all those close to you, are safe and happy on Halloween. For those who celebrate Samhain, a Merry Meet to you my friends! Call out the elements in peace! Be blessed!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What are your favorite Halloween memories? DO you enjoy Halloween more or less than when you were younger?

Auto-closets and TG Universes

2011-10-25T17:38:00.001-04:00

While this caption was made for Elly, I wanted to stretch my creative wings a bit, and do a caption that was pretty much set up in an established TG universe, specifically one that I'm not that fond of. The only one I really like is Spells R Us, and that is because its so open ended AND the guy in the bathrobe seems rooted in the ways of Kokopelli, the trickster and fertility deity.

I was/am pretty sure I'd never done an Auto-closet caption, and this picture fit the idea I was looking to make. I thought that the best way to work with it was to make it totally accidental, and the idea of looking for gifts came to mind, since I remember having my cousin look through my mom's closet rummaging for Christmas gifts .. all so I'd have a plausible denial if I was asked, "Did you go through my closet?" ... I hadn't but my cousin certainly did! I did reciprocate for him as well. My mom had much better taste in clothes than my aunt!

The further twist was my take on an O Henry type irony, just to rub the feminized wounds a bit more.

So I used this caption as a way to force myself to be creative with something I wasn't that enamored with as an exercise to make my overall writing better. Did I succeed? Well, I think I did, as I ended up liking this caption a lot more than I should have.

The main point is that we do need to stretch out and try different things so we don't get stale in our creative endeavors. Just because we have a certain wheelhouse zone for our captions, doesn't mean we can't wander around the landscape from time to time. Breakaway and level off the rut you find yourself in, and break free from your own expectations once in awhile!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Perhaps this was discussed before, but What is your favorite TG universe and what is your least favorite? How often to you read/write captions with topics you don't think you'll like? Has it ever swayed you to like it any more than you used to? I will try to follow up on your responses in the next post or two.

... and Don't Call Me Shirley!

2011-10-23T18:31:00.001-04:00

This is one serious piece of fluff I made yesterday. I figured that Caitlyn would be stressing a bit with school, and would enjoy the distraction. I even named it "Caitlyn picked the wrong week to stop making captions" since that referenced another famous line from the movie.

I know that most captions are made to titillate, or evoke another emotion ... but I like making captions just to let others know I'm thinking about them. Its cheaper than Hallmark, and much more seductive too, huh?

Of course, the jokes are all from that classic 1980 movie, "Airplane" which I recently watched again on DVD, and then caught Airplane 2: The Sequel on Netflix. I love both movies, even though the Zucker brothers had disowned the sequel, and still haven't watched it. Watch them both if/when you can, it still holds up well now over 30 years later, and it never fails to lighten my mood.

I had the "Surely you must be joking" line in my head, and since Leslie Nielsen played a doctor in "Airplane" I thought of a nurse saying that line in a TG caption. From there it was easy to find a sexy nurse outfit for Caitlyn to be wearing, and it pretty much wrote itself. I wanted to follow up that line with another joke from the movie, so I played it through my head, and the "its a blank .. but that isn't important right now" just popped out at me. They actually use the "its a building with sick people in it .." so that worked just fine for me, and related back to a nurse and doctor speaking about what had happened.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: If money and situation weren't an issue, what would you dress up as for Halloween? Have you and someone else ever dressed up as partners of the opposite sex for a Halloween party? What was your best Halloween experience?

Question Answered .. and Ikea Furnishings!

2011-10-21T12:34:00.001-04:00

I LOVE this caption, probably because I used some of the most amusing dialog I've ever thought up. I honestly had saved the photo because of the items in the background, and specifically the painting on the wall. The caption itself fits in with what I wanted to talk about today.

Let us see if I can answer this formspring question that was submitted months ago it seems. Alectra writes the following:

Can you imply the way someones talks in a cap? if so can you tell us how you do that?. For example: a character that uses broken sentences or talks without breathing(run on sentences)talks with a funny accent.Do you think that's difficult to add on a cap?

There are quite a few different ways to do what you are asking. One though has to deal with content, and the other has to do with formatting.

When it comes to making people speak broken English, as though they have been changed into a different ethic background, you first have to make sure you aren't stepping on too many toes. Stereotypes can be played with, but you have to be careful about going over the top and not being racially insensitive. For me, I usually go WAY over the top, so that no one knows there is any chance I am serious in what I am creating. Also, the protagonist in this caption is pretty much fulfilling what stereotypes HE believes in, so it softens the insensitivity a bit. At least I hope it does!

As I mentioned in a blog posting below, when I was doing the bad spelling/grammar in the Jillisa caption, I started with a correct version of what I wanted to say, then I adapted it from there. Its the same here when trying to figure out how you want the dialog to sound. Knowing how ESL people speak (English as a Second Language) helps when trying to whip up accent. For instance, French people (especially French Canadian) tend to have trouble with plurals. Perhaps an order from Dunkin Donuts might sound like, "I'd like a dozen glazed donut to go. Eet is aboot the best you can get, eh?" Yes, its a tad bit over the top, but most Boston accents aren't quite bad as "Pahk the Cah in Hahvud Yahd" either. After you work on grammar (like plurals, pronoun misusage and word order "throw the baby down the stairs a kiss") you should go through and find words that need to be pronounced differently and make a phonetic adjustment.

When it comes to elements like HOW they are talking, its a matter of how you wish to format and highlight it. For me, the best way to convey it is to adjust the font size and group the the words accordingly.

If it is in broken sentences, I would use the "..." between words and phrases to indicate a pause ("It was ... you .. all along .. wasn't it? I .. should have ... figured it out .. but I ... NO!")

To make a run-on sentence showing a lack of breath, I would probably make the font smaller and either group words into one chunk at a time ("whadoyoumeanIdunnowhatizgoin'on? Shaddupyouboogerhead!") or use many prepositional phrases slammed together without punctuation ("of course I knew what was going on with you and Steve behind the school after football practice while I was getting tutored by Jake for the French assignment I missed cuz my mother's car broke down on that stupid off ramp next to the mall with the really lame mani/pedi salon that does my toenails in friggin' pink like I'm some Hannah Montana watching, Beiber drooling mall rat like Becky! I mean, as if!")

If I can find a caption when I'm at home to illustrate this, I'll edit this post and add it in. If not, I think you hopefully get the idea.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Anything I may have missed, or not quite clarified? I made this post while working, so I'm not sure how well it flows, since it was written in fits and starts over the last 2 hours or so. For those who create captions .. I don't notice as many captioners using dialog as much to show changes that happen in the storyline. Any reason why they, or you if you don't, use it more often?

Robyn's Turn in the Barrel

2011-10-19T13:57:00.004-04:00

Many captions I make are either based off of pop culture references, or come from some other sort of "shared collective".. and this caption was based on an old joke. I don't know the official etymology of where exactly it came from, but I know that its been told about the navy for a LONG time, and possibly comes from Britain. Can any reader back up that claim?

Here is a basic telling of the joke. In fact, I might first heard of it when reading "Gross Jokes" back in the late 1980's. You remember those books (the ones with dead baby and Helen Keller jokes) right?

This guy decides to join the Navy. On his first day of service, he gets acquainted with all the facilities around the ship he will be serving on. The guy asks the sailor showing him around, "What do you guys do around here when you get really horny after months of being out at sea?", to which the other replies, "Well, there is this barrel on the upper deck, just pump your cock in the side with the hole."

Weeks pass, and the new guy is getting real horny and remembers the barrel. He climbs to upper deck and sees the barrel. Flings his shlong out and starts fucking the barrel. Its simply the best feeling he had ever experienced, it was truly a success!

After he was done, zipped up and merrily walking along, the guy who originally told him about the barrel walks by. "That barrel really was great! I could do it every day!"

To which the other crew member replies, "Yeah, you can every day except Thursday." Confused, the new guy asks why, to which the other guy replies, "Because its your turn in the barrel on Thursday."

The punchline became slang in certain areas of work. Here is what the urban dictionary has for a definition...

(one's) turn in the barrel:

Signifies a dirty or unpleasant task that one must do since it is part of their share of the work and that others have taken their turn doing before them. It sometimes referred to doing KP, but in times of combat might have been used to mean taking on a very dangerous chore (like walking point on recon). There is a vulgar joke associated with the phrase about soldiers putting their penises through a hole in a barrel to receive oral sex. When a new recruit asked who was in the barrel he was ordered to shut up. Several days later he was told it was his "turn in the barrel." This vulgar joke is the source of the phrase. In spite of its crude references I have heard Generals and Admirals on CNN use the term to describe taking their turn at an unpleasant task.

This caption pretty much leaped out of my fertile imagination while looking at ladies costumes online. When I saw the photo, for a moment I thought about the whole Milton Beryle "the IRS took everything" but then went right to the more smutty barrel idea. It wasn't too hard to figure out how to make it work as a TG caption. I think it is a fun, burlesque type caption, and my only real complaint is that the model is smiling too much, almost like she likes what she is doing, which perhaps she does! Of course, there is a very punny zinger tacked on at the very end. I know that quite a few people groaned, but hey, that is what puns are for!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: We've mentioned folklore here in this blog before, but what "historical" jokes and riddles could be used to make TG captions? I know there HAVE to be a few "farmer's daughter / traveling salesman" captions out there. Have you seen any of those? What other humor chestnuts can you think of that would translate well to the TG genre?

Wishing peepulz a Hoppy Birfday

2011-10-14T14:40:00.002-04:00

I don't think I've posted this one before. Its hard to figure out sometimes if I've duplicated a caption. I had no real topic that came into my mind for this blog, and I did post yesterday, so I went into the Haven and just randomly picked a caption out from the pile.

One of the things I like to do is acknowledge peoples birthdays from time to time, especially those that make a difference on the Haven. Usually when I make them, its with humor, and addresses the actual person that hangs around the Haven, not their persona/namesake. They are, I guess, 'semi-meta' in that I take their real life and their on-line life and sort of mesh them together.

Jillisa is a stickler for spelling and grammar, and always has a strong opinion. I have no problems with that, though I know it makes it hard on some others, especially some newbies. However, I think she's harnessed that streak into becoming one of the best proofreaders out there. I know that she has helped quite a few of the people reading this blog.

That being said, it is fun to tweak her and how she presents herself sometimes. The above caption is a good representation of how you can tweak in a pleasant way. I mean, look at her! I'm not sure the REAL Jeff would give up his smarts to be and look like that, but I wouldn't necessarily bet against it either! As someone like Jillisa, I am quite adept at proofreading and it was quite hard to make that last paragraph at first. I got around it by writing it first correctly, then degrading it as best I could. Thinking like a bimbo can be like ... umm, totally hard and stuff *giggle*

Though not an actual birthday caption, this falls into the category of a 'semi-meta' caption I made for Jennifer. She loves Mila, and loves blow-jobs. However we also know that she wouldn't just take ANY offer that was presented to her! She's has to do her due diligence before just hopping in any guys car. I mean, what if they weren't large enough, or able to produce enough cum for it to be worth her time and effort?

And yes, its a caption I did in Comic Life (made about 3 years ago!) I never really got comfortable with the program and quickly went back to Photoshop. Maybe I'll post the others at a later date. I do think that Comic Life did work well for this caption, if I do say so myself.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: The leaves SHOULD be changing color soon here in New England (it was actually 85 on Sunday!) so ... How would you like to change over the next year? It be can in real life, your online life, habits and/or ruts, whatever. Do you resist change or embrace it?

PS. I was proofing this, and its fun to see that Mozilla Firefox knows that "blowjobs" is NOT a word, and suggests either "blow-jobs" or "blow jobs".

Working for the BoA

2011-10-13T15:31:00.003-04:00

This was something I wrote for Bren, who has probably been my friend the longest on the Haven. We both started around the same week or two, and figured out many of the intricacies of the Haven on our own.

I posted this one to the blog because I've noticed a few people are posting on the Haven that they are currently in the middle of a writer's block, and hope to get over it soon. I figured I would hit upon a few things that might help others.

I don't want to admit this because some people might be pissed that I've made a shit ton of captions and it might sound like a brag, but I rarely get writer's block. For me, the delay is mostly imparted by a lack of time and availability to make captions. I think there are 2 main reasons why I am not often stumped for ideas when it comes to creativity.

One is that I don't usually put much pressure on myself to (a) make a caption, and (b) make a GOOD/GREAT caption. If the thing sucks, it sucks, and oh well, I'll get 'em the next time around. I think I've gotten to a point that, at worst, my caption is going to be rated "meh" and I can live with that LOL Most of the time, I won't even stress that much if its not flowing well. I will just save it, and try to revisit it another day. There has been quite a few captions that I've rescued out of the old graveyard and re-purposed with either a newer picture, or a modified story. Talk about being green and recycling, huh?

The other thing is that I tend to make things that are a moment in time, and nothing that has an overreaching arch. I find an anchor point, and craft everything else around it. I will let my mind meander around that point to flesh out something in my mind, but I don't have to include all those details IN the caption. That way there is always a focus.

Since I often do "a moment in time" captions, I can do use just about anything that happens in my life, or in the life of others that I know. Just reading the web for information, I can jog my mind to see a TG moment lurking somewhere underneath the surface of the story. In the above caption, I took a real life and current happenstance, and related it into a TG plot line. For those that don't know, Bank of America is instituting a monthly bank fee of 5 dollars for most of its customers, just for using a debit card. This is on top of whatever other fees they collect for the individual transaction and other fees. Naturally there is an outrage among customers.

Banks piss people off. I would imagine they piss off magical beings as well. Doesn't seem like a stretch to think that THIS scenario would happen and happen fairly often in the Haven realm of worlds. I took it up a notch by showing that it was getting tiring for Bren, and that this thing has happened before. I wanted to show the drudgery of daily life, where even a TG magic event was just another annoyance in an average person's day. "So yeah, I was stuck in traffic, the network went down, I was turned into a girl, and they were out of hummus at the deli! Thank god I'm home!"

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Do you need the TG element of captions to be fantastic, life-changing and the complete center of the whole thing, or do you like them to be a sub-plot or piece of a whole puzzle? What is a good percentage of "actual change" to "rest of the story" when you are reading (and/or creating) a caption?

(Wo)man of La Mancha .. and questions

2011-10-07T12:07:00.003-04:00

A few "questions" to get to today.

First up is this one ..

Which would make you happier to create? A cap that you don't think is very good, but is VERY well received, or a cap that you think is great, but receives no comments whatsoever?

Well, I thought that Simone gave a pretty good answer on her blog, though for the life of me, I can't remember exactly what she said. That's actually a good thing though, because I don't want to rip off her answer.

I like this caption, quite a bit actually. At the Haven, it only received one comment, and that was from the recipient, Kaitlyn. I don't mind though, because I don't think it would appeal to anyone other than some other captioners. It doesn't have a typical plot, and other than Kaitlyn's name, I went out of my way to only use some monologues from "Man of La Mancha". I really made this for myself, and since Kaitlyn is someone that enjoys the 'art' of caption making, I think she realized how hard it was to do.

I really think that if you want to increase your skill, in no matter what you do, you have to think outside the box sometimes, and rage against conventional thinking from time to time. This was my way of restricting myself, hoping to push my creative boundaries. I wanted to take the words and apply them to a TG story and make them at least feel organic. Part of the story is based on "The Impossible Dream" and for many people, becoming what they truly are is just that .. and that they are "really just tilting at windmills" to relate it back to the caption. I tried to tie that all into this caption, without much explanation, and stay true to what I was making.

Happiness is twofold in the way I make captions, since 99 percent of them are created for another person.

The main thing is that if the recipient doesn't like what I've created, then I can't be happy about that. I must say that I have created crappy captions (in my mind) that the recipient LOVED, along with many other people. I KNOW they are crap, but they are right in the wheelhouse of many other readers. It makes me happy that people enjoy it AND perhaps they'll check out something more oddball or offbeat I've created that could blow their minds and make them think outside their normal realm, all because they remembered me from that other work I created.

The other sort of happiness is when I feel that I have set a goal and accomplished it. Using an odd picture that no one else would think to use, or picking a topic that most would NOT even touch (for instance, the JFK assassination, or 9/11). Something that will stretch my captioning prowess and keep me interested in doing this. I've made over 1k captions, and somewhere around 1300 panels. I've done that consistently over the last 3+ years, without little in the way of burnout or many leaves of absence. I try not to repeat myself too much, so it is the twists and turns that keep me from falling into a rut. When it stops being fun, that it when I'll step aside. God bless those that can crank out hundreds of captions all dealing with the same theme! I need to wander around the landscape or my ADD will kick in!

Here's two that I combined into one ...

I LOVE HYPNOSIS!!! PLEASE DO MORE!!! This is the same random hypnosis fan, and I can truly say I love it. A change on what I'm used to, but I look forward to more hypnosis from you :)

There will definitely be some more on the way, but I was sort of disappointed in the lack of response to an offer of literally, "I will MAKE a caption if you give me a idea I can work with, specifically in one of these genre's that people keep asking for." If any of those people in the left column said to me, "Hey Dee, got any ideas about a caption you'd like to see?" I would probably jump all over that and probably reply "Well, I've never seen a caption based on welding, how about that?" Honestly, I thought this was the perfect time for someone that hadn't made a caption before to get a first hand look on how it can be done. Oh well!

There is one question left in the queue, which is Alectra's .. a posting all its own, and one that I am going to have to go through the archives to pull out a few captions that will illustrate what I want to talk about. Since it is quite a bit of work for that, it will have to wait for another day.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Can you appreciate a caption for what it was trying to do, even if you didn't really enjoy it? Also, what is the best way to handle a caption you've received that you just had no connection with? Should you tell the person in a comment, an instant message, or just parse your words in such a way that it sort of seems like a compliment but with less conviction?

Haven Quarterly - Issue II .. Now Available!

2011-10-03T14:03:00.004-04:00

This issue is packed with over 70 (!) pages of TG captions, stories, and other wonderful distractions!

Everything inside the eZine is EXCLUSIVE and won't be seen on anyone's blog, or even on the Haven itself. It contains creations by : Alectra, Ashley M, Caitlyn Masked, Dalene, Dementia, Entrancing Kayla, Jennifer, JPL Debi, Kaitlyn, Madcap McGee, Martha, Mistress Simone, Nadine, One eyed Pirate, Playin Petra, Rhianna Nichole, Sammie, Sarine Davis, Sci-Fi Kara, Shysteffie, Smitty, Terri, Total Ditz, and Victoria Hyde.

Honestly, if you can't find at least 2-3 people in there that just makes you all melty when looking at their work, you really shouldn't consider yourself a TG fan. The Haven Quarterly costs $10, ALL proceeds will be used to keep the site online. The eZine is loaded with EXCLUSIVE captions and stories from some of your favorite contributors on the Haven and is available no where else!

My contribution consists of a caption (one of five) where a picture was supplied, and each captioner put their own spin on it. It is fun to see what each person came up with when the source photo is the same.

I also wrote a reply to an "Ask the Mistress" column, which apparently was too risque for the normal section, and ended up in the "Smitty" section! And I was just having fun, not anything TOO naughty! Well, maybe just a little evil! For those that say I don't present as a Mistress or Domme that much anymore, you NEED to check out this eZine!

I insist you wear that tux ... and answers to queries!

2011-09-26T21:03:00.004-04:00

First question from a random hypnosis fan:

I love your captions, but would it be too much to ask for some more hypnosis captions?

How about something I just created the other day for a newbie on the Haven, Ellie Chambers?

She likes hypnosis captions, and it looked like she was into compulsions as well. I wanted to have some fun with a non-standard picture. Most of the time I try to use feminine pictures, with women wearing dresses or skirts, high heels, nylons, etc ... I found this picture of the wonderful Dita though, and a wedding scenario immediately came into focus. I figured that a wedding would be a good place to debut "Ellie" to all of Dee's family, and show who wears the pants, so to speak! The futile resistance that Iain puts up is really cute, and I'm glad I was able to make it completely dialog driven. It also has just the right amount of embarrassment factor played into it, AND the wedding pictures will last a lifetime! For the writer of this question, I would love to see what sort of ideas you have in making a hypnosis caption. See the DISCUSSION QUESTION below!

Here's a question from someone that didn't have a name:

Hey, I know the first attempt at a pregnant discussion didn't go well, but I thought that when people FINALLY started talking, it got interesting. Any chance of another couple pregnant caps plus some pregnant discussion?

Well how about I post one of the first pregnancy captions I've ever made?

One of the reasons I like this caption is its another in a long line of "oblivious" captions I so enjoy, where the grasp of comprehension is so close, or just fleeting.

I'm happy to post this question and see if anyone wants to elaborate. At this point in time, there doesn't seem to be much discussion going on. My question would be for those that like Pregnancy captions ... Do you just want to be female while the pregnancy is happening and then revert back to a man at some point, perhaps once nursing is done, or do you stay female? Are you going to be perpetually pregnant, or do you have a say in how many kids you are going to have? Hopefully that will get some people talking in the comments section!

There are a few more questions in the queue, but they might be lengthy enough to be their own complete posting. I hope people like the balance between an almost brand new (made fresh yesterday) caption and one from over 3 years ago. Now that its almost October, we have Halloween coming next month, so I'd like to see comments pick up like they were a few months ago!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: I know there has to be some people that come here that just like TG captions, and sort of glaze over all the technical or creative type discussions I try to shine a spotlight on. I wish that I would get some feedback from them, especially from a viewer standpoint. Did I convey what I set out to do? Do you have a better understanding of how they are created? Things like that.

In the spirit of that, I am looking for people to post some ideas/plots, a sentence or two of story, a smidgen of dialog, or even a zinger ... either dealing with Pregnancy or Hypnosis. I'm hoping to get at least a few people to post things here ... and I will try to make at least one or two captions for each category.

Here's YOUR chance to help make a TG caption! I could be YOUR caption consultant / editor / publisher!

A Long One from the Archives

2011-09-24T17:03:00.000-04:00

This was one from over 3 years ago, and it is quite long compared to most of the captions I've done in the last few years. I believe this is about 2 months into my caption making, and as such, its rudimentary at best, but the story is still pretty good.

I wanted everyone to see it for a few reasons.

(1) For those that are just starting out making captions, I wanted you to see that EVERYONE starts out pretty much the same. It took me 6 months or so until I had a style that I actually thought was decent, and from there, it needed another year or so to evolve.

(2) For those that think I never did series more than one or two panels ... here is a NINE panel caption series. At this point, I was just happy to be in the presence of some people on the Haven that I looked up to, and wanted to do what they did. They made caption stories that flowed over multiple panels, and THAT is what I should be doing as well! I was deliberately trying to make as many panels as I could, and it didn't really fit what I was good at. After this one, I made another one that was over 13 panels ...then I think I can count the amount of series that I did over 5 panels on one hand, the best one probably being one I did for Simone.

(3) I am still feeling pretty shitty, and I want to give a good effort for the questions that are awaiting me in formspring. Posting something from a long time ago will fill space, and hopefully make people feel better about their own captions. "Hey, I think Dee is a good TG captioner and look how shitty her early stuff is! I wanna try and make some now!" .. The best way to get good at something is to really fuck up and learn from your mistakes.

(4) I miss Bimbo Jessica, who was the recipient of this caption. She was so silly and bimboish, and made going to the Haven so much fun! Andy is really busy now doesn't really pop online that much. Occasionally I will go and search out some of the people that are no longer contributing to the Haven and check out their folders, and enjoy the old stuff in between constant flow of new captions appearing all the time!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Who are some of your favorite old captioners that were on the Haven, Lycos, or Yahoo groups that don't seem to make new captions anymore? We have a ton of archival folders at the Haven, and perhaps I, or the readers, can discover some hidden gems we haven't seen before. For me, it was Pretty Sissy Dani when she did stories that had a picture or two embedded in it. They were small serials, and those cliffhangers guaranteed I would be back to her website every day! Serena Lawhead was another on in that same vein.

Photoshop and "Wite Out" Conditions!

2011-09-20T23:28:00.000-04:00

Figured I would post this since we recently had a discussion about a few programs used to make captions, and Steffie is probably the best Photoshopper out there, with perhaps Caitlyn a CLOSE second. At one point, Steffie had the moniker of "The Pantiless Picasso" as an alternate title in the Haven, back before she was an admin, and I think it fit her well.

I also wanted to get everyone's input on this caption I am posting below. Please click on it before continuing to read.

OK, so its your basic "Dee caption" right? Basic plot line and a bit of a zinger / wordplay at the end. So, what is the big deal?

Well, I didn't use Photoshop for it, yet it still looked like you typical "Dee caption" right?

I used a free photo program out there called "Pixbuilder Studio 2.0" which is in my opinion a slightly stripped down version of Photoshop. It has layers, filters, drop shadows, and most of the tools that you'd find in a Photoshop CS1 and below. It didn't take me too look to whip this caption up. It was mostly a "ok, I know how to do this in Photoshop, what do THEY call it?"

For those that are still using MS Paint (please say you aren't!!) or something similar, you can head here to download the program and play around with it. It is somewhat intuitive, especially if you've played around with other photo editing programs. It'll even OPEN Photoshop files, though it doesn't seem to retain Adobe's layer system.

OTHER NEWS: I have a few questions that people have asked on Formspring. I will be getting to that hopefully soon. I just got a 3 week supply of antibiotics for my latest Sinus Infection, and might be seeing a specialist if they can fit me in, once I am done with the med regimen. I'm sorry I haven't posted much, and the numbers are bearing out that we don't have as many visitors lately, though the encouraging thing is that we DO get many hits the 1st day I post something new.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Did you notice anything different about the second caption I had posted? I can only see SLIGHT differences between this one and the ton I've done in Photoshop. If something is glaring, please let me know. I was trying to show how good a caption can come out while using free software.

Dirty Martinis .. Shaken Not Stirred

2011-09-14T17:41:00.000-04:00

I realize that Groucho probably didn't say one of those quotes that was attributed to him, but as I originally posted in Petra folder ...

I am more inclined to believe that you follow the words of Dorothy Parker even more than Groucho:

I love to drink Martinis,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
After four I'm under my host.

I am sick of being sick and/or busy with real life stuff. I thought it would die down soon, but things keep piling up. If only it was a "Honeydew" list, I could just ignore it but sadly its not. Since I didn't have time to make her a caption yesterday, I would like to publicly wish Steffie a happy birthday. At least I was able to send her a quick message so it wasn't belated.

Things on the horizon ... I created a caption that is going to be in the next Rachel's Haven eZine ... I LOVE it and I think its pretty special. I won't be able to post it here until next Spring, since we are maintaining a 6 month exclusivity. Lets just say it deals with a September anniversary and is part of a feature that "Dee-lusions of Grandeur" would definitely sponsor. Also for the RH eZine, I am answering a question from someone that wrote in to "Ask the Mistresses". I got the question a day or two ago and am thinking about the answers right now.

As far as tagging previous posts are going, I have done all of 2010 and January of 2011 ... and every post since June 30th. Hopefully people have been using them, or its going to just be a serious waste of my time. Anyone finding things they missed the first time around, or rediscovering a caption they'd forgotten about?

Ergonomic Chairs .. and Font Clarity

2011-09-10T17:34:00.002-04:00

Wow, I originally posted this over 3 years ago! When I saw the picture, the exact curve of the chair being almost the exact same as her posture just clicked and I don't recall spending more than 10 minutes on this. On the "Evolution of Dee" scale, I think this might be mesozoic, but it does have some charm. That is one of the most fun things about looking into my archives, seeing where I was and where I'm at now.

I wanted to post this because Tatiana asked me about the use of fonts, and some previous questions as well in how to make them clearer.

What type of font do you use and how do you get it so clear even on back grounds?

I didn't intend to write too much for her at the time, but since I am not feeling well enough to take out the AC units today (my daughter gives me much joy and pleasure in my life, but I swear, but she is like friggin' Typhoid Mary!) I figured I would try to whip up a post since I feel that I'm almost neglecting my followers lately.

Here is what I wrote, and I may elaborate more here than in the initial reply.

I don't tell people my font, mostly because I think at this point, its a "Dee" style. I would hope that even if people stumble upon it, they'd wink at me, and just use another one instead!

However, I can certainly give you many other tips.

It helps that I use Photoshop. It is the best when it comes to managing fonts. If you have Photoshop, play around with some of the fonts they have until you find something that kerns well, looks good condensed, and is readable regardless of how small it is. I would suggest something like Corbel or Calabri if you want a standard font, and something like Monotype Corsica if you want something with a bit of flair. Stay away from fonts with lots of flourishes, unless you are trying to duplicate someone's writing.

Once you have a preferred font, I almost always choose "smooth" for my anti-aliasing method. That way, there are little to no "jaggies" in the text. From there, you can play around with italics and bold, etc ... I tend to stay away from bold text, since once again, it can lead to "jaggies".

I always try to pick a text color that fits well on top of my background. I always pick the background first, as it integrates the text and photo together into one coherent piece. Usually I do that by picking a color that is dominant within the photo, and then playing around with it until it works within the confines of what I'm setting up. Once you know the background color, you can figure out what text colors you are using (or just use plain white if there is no dialog, since white will ALWAYS look the best against a darker color) by just plotting different shades against the background. If there are two people talking, I will often choose a color that they are wearing, or a hair color, that can match the quote to the person saying it.

I tend to use drop shadows with my fonts. I have a certain ratio I use that I think works best for my captions. You can play around with how you'd like it to look, or just use their defaults. Either way, it should draw your text out even more.

Lastly, this has nothing really to do with fonts or placement or anything like that. I would recommend that you keep the plot/story to its bare minimum. No matter how good your font and background look, if its too small to read, then people will ignore it. If you have a great story that cannot be edited down anymore, think about trying to find another picture, and stretch it out to a small series. This perhaps may be a guide for you, but I tend to NEVER let a picture be wider than 500 pixels when I am making a landscape caption, so that I can make the entire thing 850 or so pixels. This was done because originally you couldn't have a caption be wider than 900 pixels on the haven. Even with that constriction, I tend to make my fonts no smaller than 18 pt. Most of the time, I am using somewhere between 24 pt and 30 pt. That way I can always scale down the text box if I need a few more sentences written to finish off the caption.)

The main thing I would like to mention though, is that almost everything I've learned has been through trial and error, along with looking at tons of other peoples captions. I have a design background in real life, but I'm best at learning by playing around and messing up, which leads me to the best ways of creating, whether it be music, captions, or whatever I am working on.

Dee

PS ... . Also, yes, I am always going to be 666 years old, which is the new age 39!

I cannot stress enough that the tools you use WILL make your work much better, once you get the basics down. For the longest time, I had a copy of Photoshop 6 which was fine. Then when I went back to school for a college course, I was able to snag CS1, and I still use that one today. I just don't have the money to snag the latest version, which does look spiffy. If you have a chance to get Photoshop, I think you should learn it, as there is NOTHING better at photo editing than Photoshop.

Another caption creation tool I would possibly recommend is Comic Life, which can be had for under 50 bucks I think. If you do use that, please make sure to play around with it. For every Bren or Jennifer, there are a ton of people who's captions all look almost exactly alike.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: I will try to answer any caption creation questions that you may have. Just leave a comment and I will reply. I LOVE to talk shop, and since I haven't had much time recently to exchange ideas with people like Simone and Jennifer. Not plots per se, but the actual construction, style and flair that make up the look of what we do. EVERYONE is welcome to throw in your two cents. I know that Caitlyn often does this because she's quite anal and saves everything, but this might lead to a posting where I might decide to chronicle the steps I take in making a caption. Usually I am an "on the fly" creator, but if I think ahead of time, I'll try to whip something up more slowly.

2011-09-08T19:32:00.001-04:00

Formspring has given me a request for more pregnancy captions and a question from Alectra that I will hopefully be answering soon. Figured I would give people a heads up that I have seen them, but haven't really had time to whip something up. I haven't really even had time to make any new captions, though I did make one for the next Haven Quarterly eZine which I am sort of proud of. Unfortunately for everyone, you'd have to buy a copy when its out in October to see it!

This caption is a good followup to the previous post, in that its deals more with feelings and experiences than with a set plot line. It didn't really matter HOW she became Serena, what happens next? I didn't mention it at the time, but it was something I was thinking about, due to friends either getting divorced or losing a close loved one. Its all well and good to mourn or mope, but at some point, you have to move on and make the best of whatever situation you are currently facing.

Of course, I chose not to make this a sad caption, as it was created specifically for Serena. I wanted to accentuate the positive, and among other things, having a body like that certainly helps when coping with becoming a female. Well, at least once it is accepted.

For me, the fact that she wasn't sure of what she was wearing, as opposed to the "I'm a girl now" situation that Dee thought, was incredibly positive. Most women have a comfort zone by the time they reach their 20's, where they know how they want to present themselves: in hair, makeup, clothing, and unless its a special occasion, they don't usually veer away from it too much. Its been built up from the time they were a little girl, through the teenage years, and on up through their adult life. The next step from the mid 20's style is if/when they have kids.

Serena didn't have that chance, and will certainly have to figure out on her own what she feels most comfortable with, and it looks like that this caption is the first step of many for her. Even better, she's putting on her panties in a way that makes they easier to take off if she decides to seduce Tom!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: I've noticed that I can't help but transfer my mood and thoughts to whatever caption I am making at the time. It probably goes back to my days in music, and when I was pissed off, I would write a punk song, and if I was happy, it'd be a cheerier punk song! The photo certainly influenced what I wrote, but looking at it now, I think its a pretty vague (though quite seductive) picture. When you saw the picture, before reading the caption, what did you think the story/plot line would be from me? What would you have done with the photo if YOU were making a caption for it?

Putting On A New Face

2011-09-04T23:19:00.000-04:00

For the discussion question's sake, view the caption first, before reading the blog post.

I was going through my archive's for something to post tonight, and this one struck me in an interesting way, and figured I would share it with you. It was made for Mei and I think its probably the best one I did for her. Why, you may ask? Mostly because I went against the grain and didn't use any typical over-the-top Asian stereotypes of "Me sucky sucky" even though she doesn't mind them. I left that stuff vague so you could read it in the caption if you wanted to, but there are only so many times you really can go into that well before you get bored with it.

I wanted to play around with what constitutes the "true" person inside. Caitlyn does a great job in explaining how she's defined Calvin and where Caitlyn fits into his life. When I was creating this, I saw a way to push on through and go places I hadn't before. It wasn't like it was painfully plotted out, since it honestly took about 8 minutes in total to go from picture to final jpg, but it was an idea that had bounced around my head and just all came together when I saw the picture and knew it was going to be for Mei.

In this caption, I wanted to show that "Jeremy" was more of a Drag King mode for Mei, than the other way around. It was obvious to her, and possibly to others, that a big change in her life was about to happen. Mei, as far as I know, is in the process of transition. I thought it would be fun to see it not the way that most people see it, but from a complete alternate take. Something that is probably closer to people in the process of going through SRS feel at a certain point, where they are no longer portraying the new version of them, but pretending to be who they were and tying up the various loose ends of their earlier existence.

I made no claims as to how/why the change was happening. I figured that people would fill it in however they wanted to, but there is no forceful nature implied to whatever changes are underfoot. It could run the gamut from willing change all the way to completely forced. Perhaps that is why I love this caption so much. I laid a groundwork to get my point across, and yet it is still pretty universal. Is it magic, hypnosis, force-fem, or whatever category you want to place it in? Its probably a good litmus test to read the caption and then see how you read it.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Soooooo, what was the back story to this caption as you read it, before reading what *I* had to say? Does it line up with your preferences as to what you really like in a caption, or did what I write lead you a different way? Did I do a good enough job in portraying the idea I wanted to convey, or was it watered down too much to really grasp?

Digging Deep, Where's the Seam? .. by request

2011-09-02T10:16:00.001-04:00

Someone gave me a simple question on Formspring the other day,mainly, "could you do a bodysuit cap?"

Well, of course I "could" do a bodysuit caption. Theoretically, I could make any sort of caption I want. I don't do many bodysuit captions though, because I tend to make non-consensual captions that involve magic. It is hard to put anybody in clothing against their will, as anyone trying to get a child dressed .. or redressed after they've stripped naked after lunch would attest to. I guess you could blackmail/coerce them into it, and if I have to make another body-suit caption, I'll see if I can work on a good enough scenario to make it work. However though, I would think that 90-95 percent of all bodysuit captions would have to be considered at least partially consensual.

Because of that particular bent, I had to come up with a good reason for someone to want to use a bodysuit. Cassandra 'Angel" is big time into Cosplay and would want to use a bodysuit for the weekend so she could look even better in whatever girlish character she wanted to play. Since I'm not entirely comfortable with the concepts of bodysuits, I selfishly brought in the bathrobe wizard from Spells R Us to help sell the idea of being stuck, although looking back at it, I probably could have let it stand on its own and people would've gotten the idea. I usually give the reader the benefit of the doubt that they'll get most of the things I layer into my captions, but I didn't do that here, possibly because I wasn't quite sure of what I had written either. I think that if I had made this caption now, instead of 2 years ago, I might have used the same story line, but the execution would be much better and streamlined.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Since this was requested, and that there has to be some bodysuit fans out there, what methods would you use to get a bodysuit onto a person that doesn't want to wear one? I am assuming that there will be some people that trade with me that would LIKE to have a bodysuit, and I am looking for ideas on how to fulfill it while still maintaining the elements that make a 'Dementia' caption relatively unique. Right now I've got the blackmail/coercion method, and perhaps a paint can like spray that could be applied to the skin. What else can you come up with?

Delivering the Goods .. Steaming Hot!

2011-08-31T14:38:00.001-04:00

This is another example of using a picture that was provided by the person I was capping for, Dalene in this case. From the looks of it, I have a feeling that this is the cleanest photo in the series. Dalene has been around the haven for a LONG TIME, and she has some varied interests, though Bimbo and Baseball are her two biggest preferences. Since I've done a ton of those, I had focused on something that she doesn't seem to have listed anymore, which is being unemployed and trying to earn money. In that scenario, I wanted to make it seem dangerous if she was discovered by her wife, and what would happen then.

I left the ending vague, but shaded it towards being discovered by the wife. I mean, what fun is it if she gets away scot-free? Women are very observant anyway, so that increases the risk. Perhaps with a rack like that, his wife would get Dalene to start working in a Strip Club for some REAL money? Its not one of my best captions, but it did what it needed to do, and Dalene enjoyed it.

Site note: For I think the 1st time in the blog's history, we hit 5k in one day (I don't want to have to read all the blogs to see if this is true, but I am assuming its true) and what makes it bigger is that I had post the day before, so it wasn't a huge rush to see the latest posting. Weird though that I got no comments at all. I hope that the usual band of commenting miscreants are doing ok, and that it was just a lack of compelling things to comment upon. I really could use some good questions in formspring, or if you are a captioner and would like a critique of a certain work you've created, email me a link and I'll see what I can do if you'd like suggestions / thoughts.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: There seem to be more people posting to the haven that they've told significant others or real-life friends about their TG nature, either in the creation of captions, stories, or of their cross-dressing exploits. While this is not uncommon, the amount of positive experiences seem to have increased! If you have had positive reactions, please post them in the comments, as I'd love to see (and possibly discuss) ways to make peoples "coming out" easier. For those that haven't shared their TG nature with others, would you if you could do so, and how much of a burden is it for you to stay silent?

Its not Rogaine ... more like Whoa-gaine!

2011-08-29T16:47:00.001-04:00

Just a nice little quickie for Elle-Jae, who joined the Haven a few months ago, and seems to be enjoying herself, especially making captions. I try to be more vague and ethereal when making captions for people I don't know too well. Its not in the actual caption, but its pretty much determined that L.J. got the Whoa-gaine from some weird guy in a bathrobe down at the mall. I think that any time a product delivers on its promise, it should be commended. If you find a bottle, please send some my way!

We made it through the hurricane ok, though the landlord has to put on a new roof. Luckily it isn't suppose to rain this week, and he'll be doing it on Saturday. We only have about 30 percent of the roofing tiles still on top our our building. The island that I work on had its main electric transmitter break, and they needed a crane among other things to get power up and running again, so I got to work from home. The power should be restored to all the places on the island by tomorrow evening though. Hope everyone out there reading had only good experiences during the hurricane.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Have you found any products with claims, advertising, or what-have-you that seems to be something more TG or transformational than what it actually is? I recall making a caption for a "magic bra" but I'm not sure what others I've done (perhaps a 'Dee Dive into the Archive' is in order?) The commercials that I love are the fitness ones, that show a woman working out with tight abs and kicking breasts, and they ask, "wouldn't you LOVE to have a body like this by the time Summer rolls around?" ... like they are going to get an argument like that from my blog readers!

You'll remember EVERY year now!

2011-08-26T14:17:00.003-04:00

The only thing I really want to say about this caption is that I had the image stored on a hard drive for a LONG time before I finally was able to use it in a caption. I just wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do with it, until Terri had a 2 for 1 deal going on involving anniversaries. From there, I found a plot line that would work for it, tying in the little sun shaped stuffed animal with the hypnotic/magic phrase in the story. Not sure if everyone caught that little tie in between the picture and the story.

I wanted to get SOMETHING posted, since its been a week since I've jotted anything of note down here. Life has been quite complicated and hectic, and when you add that to hurricane preparations at work and for my grandmother, not to mention stocking up at our apartment (I am not too worried about wind and rain, more for flooding and power outages) it has not been fun.

I would like to mention, as alluded to in Jennifer's latest post, that a model recently contacted me about an image that was used in one of my captions. I had no problem removing it, since (a) I used a picture that someone had posted, and (b) it was obvious it was her. I wish they wouldn't have resorted to reporting the whole blog, as I removed the caption within 3 hours of her comment. Luckily they only set THAT post to draft, so I could "edit" the post, which technically had ALREADY been edited. None of the other posts were affected.

So at this point in time. I would like to re-iterate the following. I make no claims that I am the creator of any photographs posted to the site. I do not make any money off the captions NOR from this blog itself. If you are the owner/creator of the picture, please leave me an email or point of contact and I will graciously remove the caption from this blog. If you just want credit/links to your work, I can do that as well.

However, I am the person that writes the stories and does any and all graphic design involved in the creation of the captions I post, unless I specifically say its a guest caption. I have no issues with people posting my "work", as long as there is credit given, and a link back to this blog.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: How as the tags working out so far? Any more I should add, but haven't yet? What type of caption would you like to see next?

Miki Loves PETA

2011-08-19T15:07:00.001-04:00

Just a quick little Friday post to keep people going throughout the weekend. Hope this blog post finds everyone in good spirits. I hope everyone has done something during the summer to make another person's life better, in even a small way. Helping others always seems to make ME feel better, and what better side product can you get than that?

I've tagged pretty much all of 2010's posts along with everything posted so far in August. I will be working on Jan - July of 2011 as things move along. I did not post as much in 2010, so it was much easier to figure out, though I'm still not quite sure of the tags I've made so far. I know I haven't done any yet for MILF, and I'm making "Mind control" count for hypnosis, magical control, or anything else that makes people act differently, rather than REALLY make it TOO specific. I mean, the whole point of this blog is to get people talking about the discussion questions.

Speaking of, we have a good question and some great answers already in the last post about femininity. Please put your two cents in, even if its just to agree with a particular commenter.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What stands out the most to you when it comes to makeup, especially in a TG caption? I know that lipstick gets lots of love, and its easy to link that magically into a transformation as anyone can smear on without issue. However, I think that eye makeup is a harder effect to achieve, and using it as a mode of showing how far along someone is into their transformation can be a subtle window into how much control a person is under. Perhaps pulling out a compact at an embarrassing time and looking in the mirror might also be a fun little diversion! What do you, the readers, think about makeup in captions, and the best ways to use them in a story plot?

Jacob's Nightmare ... Ashleigh's Dream Come True!

2011-08-18T11:26:00.003-04:00

Well, I've only got one suggestion for tags so I'll wait that out a bit, and just start tagging the news posts.

I made the above caption for Ashleigh, who is a relative newcomer to the Haven. I had saved an extra hair rollers picture from when I was making Shauna's, and I wanted to do something with it. The pose leads itself to a steady and subtle change .. a slow burn so to speak. Most of my captions are "real time" so its nice to do an overall arc, hitting on some things in their preferences that make them smile. Since she's new, I didn't have too much to go on, so its a basic caption, but I like it when changes happen, and its an issue, but then it fades. ("Ummm Jake, you realize you have long red fingernails right?" "Omigod, yah!" *goes back to reading his maxim magazine, then 20 minutes later* "Hahaha, look at the guy reading a romance novel with his long nails!" *Jake looks up and blushes, embarrassed, then get engrossed in the novel again*)

This caption pretty much highlights how femininity has changed over the years, and how in one way, the TG community has failed to follow along. We used to have many things that we can concentrate on when it comes to female accoutrement. The above hair rollers or hair salons, hosiery and heels, lots of foundation garments, and makeup being some of the things that seem feminine. Nowadays, those things don't seem nearly as prevalent in a woman's life. Bare tanned legs are in vogue, makeup that doesn't LOOK like makeup sells well, and I don't think any women under the age of 30 even owns a slip. Curly hair is only done with a curling iron, and most women now are using hair straighteners.

Not only have men become more metrosexual, women have become much more comfortable in how they look. Lots of what used to define women, have now become more of a fetish idea or kink. Fishnets (and back seamed stockings) are naughty wear, and makeup, hose and heels are "I'm going to slut it up tonight!" Most women have a few pairs of lingerie for seduction or to feel sexy, but would even forego nightgowns for over-sized T-shirts.

I think it started back in the 90's when grunge was in fashion. Women figured out that they could be comfortable and still be women. Also, more women were actually gaining power in the workplace, and dress codes lessened as time went on. I mean, I can get away with outfits I never would've gotten away with 10 years ago even, and I've seen women wearing FLIP-FLOPS in an office setting, which probably would have gotten her fired back in 1995.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What defines a woman as feminine and girly now as far as how she appears and acts in public? Where do you think it will go from here? Back to the way it was, or even more of a homogeneously genderless existence for both male and female?

20 bucks a blowjob? That's a bargain!

2011-08-15T13:44:00.001-04:00

I am back in the area now, and the weather matches my mood ... a downpour.Hope is such a powerful emotion, and I will get some soon I wish.

In the meantime, here is a nice little nasty caption, with a hefty zinger at the end. I can almost hear the rim shot after it ends. When I found the picture, I knew that Mei would like it, and come to find out, She loves Tiger Benson. Since I made this caption, I've seen a few of her videos where she is a petgirl. My favorite out of those is the one that also has Danica co-starring. No one pants and barks like Tiger though!

Someone posted a question on Formspring which was 'forced fem" .. I think that same person does this in others blogs, and it is probably a mistake. Perhaps they thing the box is a search and they are looking for tags? I am planning on tagging most of the blog posts here. I just have to get back to a even keel in real life, then I can probably whip through the posts so that this blog is much more search-able. Figuring out which tags to use is just a small part of the problem, and I'll most likely go with a standard (ie. magic, forced fem, preg, humil) type tag though I have no problems getting a bit more specific as time goes on. This blog post will be the first in a long time that has any sort of tags.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Which tag would you like set up first? Let me see some comments talking about why I should set up their favorite TAG and I'll choose one and (a) set up a new post dealing with the tag subject, and (b) make my way through the rest of the posts and tag those that fall under the guidelines. Anything I haven't put up on the blog yet that should be the next post here?

Gotta get this thing off of me ... oh never mind!

2011-08-12T14:47:00.003-04:00

Wanted to make a quick post for everyone as I'll be away for the most of the weekend taking care of some family related issues that I would prefer not to be doing, and I mean in a sad way, not in a "Goddess I HATE going to Aunt Kerry's house. It always smells like burnt milk there."

I'd also like to thank everyone that posted in the "Dee's Haven" portion of the Haven. For those that didn't know, this week is my week with "owning" the Haven so to speak. We had lots of fun goofing around with Alectra and others. Nice to be recognized, but I'm one of many that do much there, and I didn't expect to have my name on the marque (sp) but if they were going to, you think they'd use the color BLACK a bit more!

Figured I would post another "naughty" caption to hold people over. I had no idea who the model was before Candy told me it was Kimber James. Since then, I've seen her pop up from time to time in other captions. Perhaps its the blond hair that was throwing me, because I mostly see her with black hair. Very pretty she-male, though I would guess that she's had quite a bit of cosmetic surgery. All it all, it was a perfect picture for what I was looking to create, and for those that like captions of this nature, I don't think you could get much more attractive looking than what Kimber has to offer.

I hope to be back posting on Monday or Tuesday. If I get a chance before then, I might pop into the comments, or even visit some other blogs. I see that Caitlyn-Masked has been cranking them out lately!

Instead of a discussion question, if anyone has something to bring up that you'd like to me elaborate on, don't hesitate to post in the comments or do the formspring thing. You could also PM me on the Haven.

Up close and personal with .. something personal!

2011-08-11T13:38:00.001-04:00

JPL had this picture in his folder, and as he is another person that is constantly putting me into caption debt, I figured I would try to keep up by using something I knew he'd like. It is a bit more "risque" than I like to use, but I think that worked to my advantage. I mean, we've seen our private parts since we were tiny, but we don't usually see them from other positions unless we are watching ourselves on a sex tape. Even then, its not live and in our faces. So that, plus the loss of power in a relationship, made it a caption that I'm pretty sure that JPL enjoyed. Looking at the picture again, I think I OWN that same graphic EQ rack at home!

Haven't been in the best of moods lately, as life hasn't exactly gone my way. BUT I will try to persevere as best I can. I hate when the real world interferes with my fantasy time. This place is an important part of that fantasy time. I am also sorry for not replying to comments or even PM's lately.

For fun at lunchtime here, I was trying to stump Google by searching out weird terms and to see if there was anything that went along with it. The most fun one was "Noid Cosplay" ... as apparently there ARE people that dress up as the old Domino's mascot for "Avoid the Noid"! He did have a videogame and was killed by Mayor Adam West on Family Guy so he's still in the pop culture realm, but people will really dress up as ANYTHING huh?

DISCUSSION QUESTION: How would you react realistically to the scenario in the caption above? Would you freak out? Would you go for it, knowing that you'd never probably get an actual chance to go fuck yourself again? Would you enjoy it?

Shauna's Got a Nagging Feeling About This!

2011-08-07T18:43:00.001-04:00

Shauna does her best to keep me in caption debt, so I have her in the back of my mind when I'm looking for pictures to caption, since her preferences are pretty lenient. She really does just love getting attention in her captions, so its never a thing of ," I want to be an auburn colored nurse that weighs between 120 and 125 pounds wearing a pink uniform with baby blue heels carrying a clipboard or a spatula ... oh yeah, I want the caption to be set in space if at all possible."

When I saw this picture, a 60's - 70's sitcom vibe struck me. She looked like an attractive woman, but the kind of wife that the guys in the bar complain about, and around 11 pm, she's standing outside the pub with a rolling pin ready to strike her hubby in the head.

Once I had that, it wasn't too hard to pick a few of the choice bits that most of those sitcom employed. I didn't want to make it too specific, as it could have been ANYTHING that changed Shauna (and Nate for that matter) since sitcom's back then were so episodic, they was no real "canon" as to how they would behave from week to week. I mean, for an "uncharted" island, Gilligan and the crew were visited almost every week by someone, whether a cosmonaut, movie star, etc ... and never was closer to getting off the island at the end of the episode.

It was really fun to write and I thought the story went well with the picture.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: How would YOU set up a TG sitcom? What would be the plot, and how would you make it so that there would be a running story throughout seasons? Mine would be to rip of "My Name is Earl" where I would have the main character travel around and make amends for all the crap he pulled as a guy.

Quite the External Drives You Got there!

2011-08-05T11:29:00.002-04:00

This caption was just a case of seeing a photo in someone's picture folder and thinking about it in a straight forward manner. I saw the picture and said, "Damn, those gazongas certainly don't have any silicone in them. There is silicon in computer chips, so if those boobies DID had that inside, there would be a ton of memory storage available .. OHHHH, there we go!" and it was an almost instant story.

I want to know how they know we are using only 10 percent of our brains. they can see the synapses firing, but what if the 90 percent they don't see is just doing something else? I tend to believe in evolution, but if that is true .. why the hell do we need the other 90 percent empty and unused? You'd think we'd have modified it for some special purpose by now OR we are not evolving but DEVOLVING! I mean, why did the Egyptians make the BEST pyramid FIRST then spend the next 1000 years making shittier ones? Perhaps the 90 percent is just cushioning and padding for when we bang our heads against something hard.

So anyway, boobie storage would be the best, since you can lock away all the knowledge and experiences in there, and let the new brain fill up on its own. Since guys supposedly think with their dicks, putting their brain in the boobies is just good organization, since tits are one of the things that they think about extensively.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What draws you into a woman first? How would that change if you became a woman, would you probably pick the same thing, or do you think your desires would be different? What do you think your best feature is, and how would that be different if you were born a woman?

If only she could find the key!

2011-08-02T14:34:00.002-04:00

When I first posted this, I thought it was fairly clear what I was trying to do, but quite a few missed the whole point of this caption. It wasn't brain surgery ... and yet, many people missed the answer, which was right under their noses, or above those shiny orbs at the least! I can understand why they were distracted!

Discussion Question: How often do you miss a totally obvious plot point, or at least one that seems obvious to most people? To me, that would be a definite "bimbo" moment, like laughing at a joke for all the wrong reasons, or laughing before the actual punchline. What was it that made you miss the central idea behind the caption?

2nd period Chemistry is going to be different now!

2011-08-01T11:56:00.003-04:00

I like these sorts of captions, where a position of authority is dressed down a bit, and now has to deal with being on the other side of the fence. Not necessarily in a demeaning or punishing way, but experiencing things from the other perspective. When I was in High School, I could often picture myself in the hot teachers body, using it and my authority to get whatever it is I wanted, or being the shy but sexy nerd girl. Something (ANYTHING!) that wasn't my usual world (can you tell I get bored easily?!?)

Nothing mind-blowing involved with this caption, as its a basic set up and delivery, with a picture that is well within what you'd expect for the plot line. It is a typical point in time caption, and I think that it actually paints a complete picture. There wasn't much in the way of vagueness here, unless you wonder if she'll go back to being Mr. Broderick, or stuck as Tatiana.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: I didn't really get answers to a question I asked previously, so I will ask it again. What do you do to spoil yourself? Do you ever splurge? If you do, what do you splurge on?

Blondes are gullible .. and regrets!

2011-07-29T14:09:00.001-04:00

I mentioned regrets in the title, because I was trying to pull out captions from the past to post, letting my newer ones age a bit before discussing them. I figured that I could just snag one and wonder what I'd do differently if I was creating the caption RIGHT NOW, in July 2011.

First off, this was created as an award for a caption challenge back in June of 2009, to raise money for the Haven's bills (wow, that sounds familiar!) and it was won by Cassandra Angel Windancer Jingleheimer-Schimdt (I don't want to shout but, "Hey, that's my name too!") She's into weaponry and things like that, and the model's name is/was "Blond Ninja" so I figured I would have to make some sort of reference to it.

The regret I have is that I didn't go as over the top with this as I should have. Its a one note joke, and should have included some of the most ridiculous plot twists and turns I could think up, possibly while drunk. I know that I could have ended up rambling, and I can't imagine a bimbo following all too closely, unless perhaps I mention a unicorn. All bimbos love unicorns rights? Still though, while I'm not unhappy with the caption, it had so much potential, and I pretty much wasted it.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Are there any "universal" rules when it comes to bimbos? I mean, vampires aren't supposed to be able to go out in daylight, are afraid of crosses and garlic, and have to be killed by various special tasks and tools. What sort of folklore do we have when it comes to bimbos?

Keep it Watered .. and other stuff

2011-07-27T18:52:00.002-04:00

This is one of the first few captions I had ever made for Courtney. I think I've made over 20 now since she joined a few years ago. I found it while searching through all the captions I've done for her. Tomorrow is her birthday, and I wanted to make sure I made her a caption that didn't repeat any themes I've covered before. I mean, this is the third or fourth BIRTHDAY caption I've made her, and I've done a slew of others. This caption is pretty elegant in its simplicity, and its very good for the "early" period of my work. I'm not sure that my current design scheme would make it any better, as the words directly on the photo make it seem more intimate and "in the moment."

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Well, one good thing about this blog is that I continue to have more followers than posts. It was getting close there, but in the last week or so I picked up 7 or 8 people. Glad to see that more people are wandering here and liking what they see. I have my core group of friends / commenters which I cherish, but it is nice to see someone I don't know pop on and enjoy what I've been creating.

I am wondering why some people pick "post less like this" ... sometimes it seems like there are one or two people that RUSH to the current post and dislike it. I post, and within 30 minutes, there is 2 votes for that in the blog. Not sure if its random people trying to be douches, or if they honestly dislike something. If they did, I wish they'd either comment on the post, or at least send me an email. Its a vague choice anyway, but you never know if its a "random drive-by shooting" or if they didn't like the caption, or perhaps what I wrote along with it.

In other news, my jeep is dead and I'm without wheels. Need to find something quickly. The GF's car went down on the same day, but luckily it was only a thermostat issue. If I had a decent amount of money (or good credit) I'd be able to find something reliable, but its hard to do when you've got limited funds and no method of getting around because you're jeep is dead! Arrgghh!

I felt the need to treat myself after this shitty week, so I bought a half pound of lobster salad for 6 bucks at the local seafood outlet. Its incredible stuff, and I can usually get 2-3 lobster rolls out of it. I just finished eating one with some chips ... Ahhhhh, much better mood.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What do you do when you want to caption, but you have a sour mood? I know that Caitlyn has covered it in her blog, and Jennifer has mentioned music that gets her going. What other things can you do to get things rolling when its been a horrid day, week, etc .. ?? What do you do when you want to pamper or spoil yourself?

Taco Belle .. and AARRGGHH!

2011-07-25T21:40:00.001-04:00

Wanted to post something because I haven't posted since Friday. However, when I was leaving work today, either my fuel pump or fuel line let go, soooooo, I had to wait to have it towed to my mechanic. Will find out tomorrow what is wrong (and miss some work as well) but I really don't want to spend any more money on it as I'm currently driving it into the ground. AARRGGHH! At least the tow-truck guy says his sister is selling a jeep, so I'll have to look at it soon (not sure if I have the cash right now, but I need to have stable wheels.) We will see if its good, and perhaps rob Peter to pay Paul.

Hope everyone survived the heat wave and that all your friends and family are doing well. Perhaps I'll have another post on Wednesday. Something else goes wrong (see my reply to the last post) and I could go all LUDDITE on my shit! No manifesto though. I am too much of a geek to give up everything!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What technology in your life could you NEVER give up now no matter what? If you had to give up something, what would it be? Did you ever think when you were young, that technology would come along this far in such a short period of time, and does it give you hope that some of your TG dreams could come true in the near future?

If Only CURVES Actually Worked This Way!

2011-07-22T09:37:00.004-04:00

This is another caption from that little 90 minute captioning jag I talked about in the "Reschedule That Meeting" blog post. I was having a bit of trouble making a caption for SP2000, since Kelly doesn't really want a permanent change, just temporary. I was trying to think of how I could pull it off when I stopped on this picture, a really hot chubby girl. From there, it just hit me that a body swap would be a great way to make it work AND Kelly would be able to "control" how long she'd be in that body. After that, it took a few minutes to whip up the text. Of course, I needed some sort of hook so I used the curves line at the end. For those not from the USA, there is an exercise place for women called CURVES, which caters to larger women looking for a place where they won't be embarrassed or harassed like in a normal gym.

I got the power supply installed last night I LOVE IT! So many connectors with all the wiring wrapped in this like black mesh-like latex stuff so it is dark in the case. Much better than the one I had it in before (which had a surprising lack of molex connectors and not even ONE PCI-E connector for my video card. Got a really good deal on it through Newegg, where it was a Shell Shocker for 35 bucks, regularly 70 dollars with free shipping. I had it 24 hours after I ordered it. Amazing! Supposedly its green technology, though I could care less. I got it because it was a reliable 520w Antec power supply. Now, I'm itching to build the rest of a new system around this wondrous piece of machinery.

Anyway, its been so hot in that room that I haven't stress tested the system yet to see if anything else was taken out of commission by the failure of the old power supply. I ran it with a normal load in a hot room for 30 minutes last night, so that is a start. Hopefully I can max it out later this weekend. I should be floating about though for those that need of my services.

Please feel free to post comments in any of the previous posts as well. I am not sure that I'll have time to put up another caption blog post, but I will try to keep multiple discussion comments alive if people wish to bring them up.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: When it comes to BBW TG captions, do you prefer punishment captions, or do you like it when its fair and balanced, and not just for ridicule? I guess it could come down to whether the caption is based in more of a real cross-dressing style or more of a "POOF you are now a big boned woman". Do you dismiss BBW TG captions out of hand as soon as you see them, or will you at least read them to see if it is a good caption?

Lose That Spare Tire!

2011-07-21T14:39:00.001-04:00

Something I made over two years ago. The photo just called out for a silly and fun caption with some word play thrown in for good measure. I think it speaks pretty well on its own, unless those tires are only in America, then, as usual, I am leaving my friends from other countries stranded high and dry yet again!

Anyway, I wanted to post a nice summer caption, and then realized while looking through the Haven, that I don't really have many summer captions at all. As a plot line, or in photos that have bikinis and beaches and all that . I probably have enough made to count with one hand.

I think I know the reason though, and it never really occurred to me before now. I am NOT a fan of summer, or even spring for that matter. I love October (more than just for Halloween) and I usually function the best between October and March. After that, I get lots of seasonal allergies, hay fever, and I am not a fan of hot weather or sweating.

I don't think I've been a beach during the day in ummmm, 12 years. One reason is that I kinda hate the whole beach experience. Another is the GF is incredibly white skinned to the point of being almost see-through (we have to slather 666 SPF on her to make sure she doesn't blister, peel, and scream.) Throw in the traffic, the lugging around all the supplies, cooler, etc ... and I would much rather just swim in someone's pool if I feel the need to cool off.

What is worse is I now have quite a few vacation days I can spread throughout the year. My work would prefer I take them during the summer when it is supposedly slower. Of course, since everyone else takes time off, it doesn't seem like there is any sort of slowdown to me. I'd much rather sit here in the office and enjoy the wonderful air conditioning that try to vacation somewhere hot. Besides, I can never afford to go anywhere so I'd be sitting at home in front of a computer with the AC there .. so why not get paid for it and take my time off when I actually would like!

Anyway, I ended up taking a day off yesterday since they wanted me to "relax" which I never do because I'm not wired like that. The GF has the week off so we just wandered around some outlet malls and things like that, mostly trying to avoid the sun and intense heat. Now I need to install a new power supply into my desktop computer at home since it keeps rebooting. I'd have LOVED to have done that on my day off, I like sleeping in my bed .. which probably wouldn't have happened if I avoided my loving GF! LOL

So, until I can take care of that, my attendance on the intertubes will be sporadic, especially during the weekend. I will probably have time to do the power supply sometime during the weekend, barring any other social events that my beloved has entwined me into attending. Perhaps I will post something more of note than this.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Yeah, I know this is mostly a filler post, but you could always go back and read the last caption post I made since it only has 2 responses so far. . Do you like to go on vacation or do you prefer to take a day or two off, here and there, scattered throughout the year (which is what I tend to do)? What is your favorite season and why?

The Haven Quarterly - Issue I - Now Available!

2011-07-19T12:03:00.002-04:00

You've seen it listed on other blog sites, and hey, you'll see it posted here too!

The premiere issue of The Haven Quarterly eZine is now available EXCLUSIVELY from your local Haven newsstand! All those that pre-ordered their copy have already received their download information, but just because you didn't pre-order doesn't mean you won't be able to get a copy of your own!

The Haven Quarterly costs $10, ALL proceeds will be used to keep the site online. The eZine is loaded with EXCLUSIVE captions and stories from some of your favorite contributors on the Haven and is available no where else!

People that comment on this blog have contributed to the eZine, like : Jennifer, Martha, Caitlyn-masked, Smitty, Mistress Simone, and me! Others from the Haven like : Petra, Steffie, Kaitlyn, Nadine, Rhianna Nicole, Sissytif, Terri, and Totalditz have also made this a wonderful eZine worthy of the $10, and everything within the 38 pages is exclusive to the eZine.

It really does look like a magazine, with TG advertisements and everything.

Makes a great gift for your favorite Haven member! Just donate in their name!

As an added bonus, Smitty has offered to give the first 50 people who donate a free single panel caption. So not only do you get an awesome web magazine, you also get an awesome cap from a truly prolific and popular captioner. People have already started donating, so don't wait around too long. You'll get the zine no matter what, but you need to act quickly to get in on Smitty's offer.

Might want to reschedule that meeting!

2011-07-18T15:20:00.005-04:00

EDIT: OK, the actual real sized caption is now available!

I try to make captions for certain members at least every 6 months, just to let them know I'm thinking of them. Ashley M. is one of those people, AND since she doesn't mind crossdressing / she-males / goths ... when I have some ideas that need to be fleshed out, she gets to be the end result.

I was on a little caption jag last night because I had about 90 minutes of uninterrupted time to whip things up (though I had to squeeze dinner in there as well.) I made four captions of a quickie nature, and this might be my favorite out of the batch. What I did was this: I went to an old photo archive I had that I hadn't seen in at least a year to 2 years. I just looked at each photo, and if I hadn't used it as a caption already, I would just glance at it and see if anything popped into my head. If not, I moved on to the next one. That happened often, because if they weren't used back then, it was probably that I hadn't an idea that worked, either due to a viable plot or no one to make a caption for that would fit the picture.

I thought it'd be a fun exercise to see what I could come up with, AND it almost felt like I was being green and recycling old pictures I had saved, instead of mining for new pictures all the time. It was a complete blast, and I'm going to have to do it again when I get that much time without major interruptions.

The only person who I had in mind for these captions were Jillisa, since it was her birthday. At some point I found something that fit her and made one up right away. Anything else, if I came up with the idea, I tried to immediately work towards a certain person. This caption is in that vein, since I didn't want to do a complete change to a woman. I figured that Ashley wouldn't mind, since she's enjoyed captions like this before.

The main thing I thought of when I first saw the picture was ... what if someone hadn't figured out everything bad that had been done to them? I really like the whole "oblivious to what happened until the least opportune time" scenario (which with "can't control the compulsions implanted" is my current favorite method of TG) and the photo gave me a chance to whip something up. A look like THAT is definitely hard to miss, but having her see the small change (the nails) and fix it would be a great set-up / stinger in the end. Not only that, but kind of lead the reader on to think that Ashley caught the makeover in time, but really only had scratched the surface of the changes.

Yes, I understand that hair like that would be hard to miss, but ... what if there was something else in that scalp rub? Perhaps some discrete programming to not notice what happened until the meeting? Is Dee behind all this, or was it just a case of the stylist having fun, or figuring that is what he wanted? Besides, we all have to suspend our disbelief a little now and then, right?

DISCUSSION QUESTION: I don't see captions (or stories) like this nearly enough. Can you out there in blog land refer me to some captions, stories, artists and writers that fit this sort of theme? I don't mind if its TG or TF (I belong to forever changing as well) and love to see/read about people that either are compelled to behave differently or are are somewhat oblivious to what is happening (like they realize they are changing, but still try to be themselves, even as it spirals out of control.) What do you think happened after the caption ended for Ashley? Did Dee have anything to do with the changes?

I give you these 15 ... crumble ... 10 Commandments!

2011-07-16T23:34:00.005-04:00

Well, I got this question from Formspring a week or so ago, and wasn't able to tackle it at that time. I had a few minutes to whip something up though it probably wasn't what Luke was looking for:

Hi, Can i ask you a TG caption where you are a Goddess and re-write the 10 Commandments for us? I hope that your commandments regarding the new male clothes and style... bye, Luke

I always liked George Carlin's take on the 10 commandments. You can find them on Youtube or elsewhere (I think he wrote it down in "Will Jesus Bring the Porkchops?" where I originally read it) but he boils them down to 2 commandments.

Thou shalt always be honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie.
Thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless of course they pray to a different invisible man than you.

Two is all you need; Moses could have carried them down the hill in his fuckin’ pocket. I wouldn’t mind those folks in Alabama posting them on the courthouse wall, as long as they provided one additional commandment: Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself.

Well, if Carlin can get it down to two, I can double it, since I'm at least 50 percent more alive than he is at this point.

Somewhere else I vaguely remember people posting the 10 or 50 or 100 biggest cliches of TG stories. It was a great read, but still they will pop up all the time. I mean, if you get pregnant, you'll be a female forever! Someone needs to do an etymology on where that first popped up, since apparently EVERYONE decided, "hey, that is a freakin' awesome plot twist!" Well, it was the first few hundred times it was done. To be honest, I've probably used it as well, but sometimes you have to give the people what they want, right? I don't usually mind typical standard operating procedure, but there are a few cliches that just stick in my craw, and trust me, I don't like anything in my craw unless *I* put it there!

I hope people are even slightly amused at that caption, and if not .. there is some eye candy for you at least! Keep the questions coming though and I'll be back in a day or two.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: If a certain TG cliche happened to disappear from the face of the earth, which one(s) would it be to make you the most gleeful?As a corollary, which one(s) do you never tire of, no matter how many times you see it?

Don't Rain on My Parade!

2011-07-15T13:33:00.002-04:00

Please view the first caption above first before reading the blog posting.

I had an idea to make a caption that was vague in which way it the plot actually played out. I tried to write it in that either "he actually WAS exactly the way he was in the photo, and Damien was setting him up to be a hot woman wandering around the party making her future fiance look like a lesbian." OR "what we are seeing in the picture is what Kevin thinks is the way he looks, and is actually still himself dressed up in slutty clothing which will be a huge embarrassment to the entire family later on that day."

I originally planned it to be the first reading, that he actually looked like that and that Damien was just yanking his chain. But as I went along, it was intriguing to have a caption where the reality is that the guy THINKS he has changed, but it still himself, with the bonus that he is wearing womens' clothing and setting himself up for some major humiliation as he goes about his daily routine. I just tweaked it a bit so that both scenarios would work, and it'd be up to the reader to decide. However, by the time I posted, I was leaning more towards the second scenario of Kevin still being a guy, but hypnotized to think he looked like a sexy woman.

Something happened around the time I had created the caption, but not posted it. Gay Marriage passed in the state of New York. I thought that was a big deal, since it seemed that it was going to be defeated by ONE vote. One lousy stinking vote! I wanted to use the law passing in a caption, and as I was looking at this, it seemed to call out for a sequel. This usually doesn't happen for me, especially since I deal mostly with single panels. Luckily for me, I had a set of pictures to use (when I made the above one, I was trying to figure out which picture to use) so it was just a matter of snagging another suitable photo.

So I ended up using both images that I had trouble deciding about, and the second one seems more of a "leaving the house now" shot, don't you think? I would like to think that I made it well enough that people would think it was always meant to be a 2 part caption series. The first one ends well enough on its own, but I think the second one does a great job of wrapping it up into a bow and delivering the goods.

Someone did leave a Formspring question, but wanted the answer in a caption form, and I just haven't had much time to devote to whipping one up at the moment. I do hope to have something for it within the next week. Feel free to leave more questions though!

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Would I have been better to keep it at one caption, or does the followup make it better and more complete? IF you read it to be that Kevin was still a dude, but wearing female clothing, did you mind that ... seeing as you don't get to see a cross-dressed dude in the actual caption? Is that scenario the better one, or is Kevin REALLY changing into a girl the most satisfying to you?

I am looking forward to comments on this one, since I could use some other peoples' perspective on what they think.

We've Got It Maid .. yeah, i used that lame title!

2011-07-12T13:38:00.003-04:00

This caption was made a few years ago for Cassandra (Angel Winddancer now apparently.). She had it posted in her "use these pictures to caption me" so I knew it was definitely up her alley.

I had some sort of inside joke going on with the post which I have no idea what it was about now (one of the things I had mentioned in the last post, what the hell was it about anyway?) Perhaps someone can remember what this was in reference to?

Yeah, I know ... it's a typical caption ... but it's for YOU, so it's ATYPICAL, since I've not made one like this ... FOR YOU!

Oh well, I'm hoping you will still like it cuz it's ... FOR YOU!!

I'm a really good salesperson huh? Perhaps by underselling it, you'll love it even more cuz it's ... FOR YOU!!!

Dee

Have I stressed enough yet that it's ... FOR YOU!!

Yeah, I'm totally stumped. Perhaps my mind is just on some sort of bimbo vacation or something. I'm relatively sure that what I typed in and what I had created for the caption had nothing to do with each other.

Anyway, on to the actual discussion of the caption.

I like the caption, even though it is quite derivative, used a supplied picture, and is not very original at all. Why do I like it then? Probably the same reason why most people watch the same type of sitcom, or read the same genre of books. Its familiar territory, a path that has been walked down upon many times. Its brain candy, and lets your mind shut down and work on a lower level. There is no hidden agenda, and you probably won't remember it the next day. Honestly, I can't recall a single thing about the creation of this caption.

We all need captions like this ... let me repeat that ... We all need to read AND write captions like this one. A caption that goes from point A to point B with no real variations, distractions, or shocks. You know exactly where its going and how its going to end.

They still have to look good, and have a plot and a resolution. But as a palate cleanser, this does a great job of distracting you from everyday life. Just sit back and picture yourself for a few minutes in her body, running on autopilot, and realizing the predicament you are in, trapped and unable to get things back to normal.

I know the dialog is cheesy, and probably borderline racist .. but damn it hits a humiliation button on me that takes my breath away. Perhaps it is because I am pretty verbose and semi-eloquent (when I'm not dropping F bombs) and being trapped in what everyone KNOWS is a horrible stereotype makes it even more delicious. Having to act in such an over the top manner just touches me in the right spot from time to time, whether it is changing positions with the asian girl at the nail salon, the spicy latina hairdresser, or the boy-crazy, gum-chewing, teenage sales clerk at Claire's or Rue 21.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: This caption might hit some of your buttons, but my question is ... what kind of straight-forward TG caption gives you such a visceral feeling of "OH YEAH!"?? One where it doesn't matter if it is witty, or clever, or creative. Is there something that almost ALWAYS get you thrilled to read? It doesn't have to be a genre or plot-line, but just an element that does it to you.

Don't be Hostile to a Hostel

2011-07-10T20:34:00.004-04:00

This snappy little caption was made for Martha. My goal was to make something that was simple in execution, yet still touched a few buttons. Oftentimes Martha asks about things that I put in the captions, that tend to be foreign to someone not from America. Mostly pop culture references, but idioms, old sayings, and the like tend to go over her head. It isn't her fault, it is probably mine that I use so many things as short cuts in my elaboration to stories.

I mean, if my friends and I are playing a fighting game on the Xbox 360, and someone gets completely beaten, they are "Drago'd" aka what happened to Apollo Creed in Rocky IV. We drop a lot of dialog from Kevin Smith movies, and have own own verbal shorthand. The more obscure the better, but when trying to make captions that people will want to read, I have to remember to be as inclusive as I can. If anything, I want them to feel that they are in on the situation and what is going on behind it.

The "No! Not the bore worms!" is a dreadful line reading from the Flash Gordon movie. When I was younger, if any of my friends got an over the top punishment (like grounding for a week or no phone, or whatever) we would cry out, "NO! Not the bore worms!" Another quote we'd use a lot was "KAHN!!! from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn as screamed out loud by William Shatner. We'd convert it into "COOOOOORN!" or what ever fit the mood.

So anyway, that is why I try to be opaque but give some guidance on how to view any caption I make. I noticed this more when I had posted some captions to TF Media, Since they didn't have a clue as to WHY Jennifer liked bondage and blowjobs, or that Bren loved revenge stories, or who the hell Dee was and why was she so mean to everyone else. When I am making captions for Haven people (which is 99 percent of what I make) I can often shortcut what is said because "Hey, its for Caitlyn, and everyone reading it already knows what she likes, blah blah blah". One of my goals is to try to make them a little less "insider knowledge" and make them a bit more universal without losing the familiarity for the person that I am creating it for.

If I can create a good balance between the two, then I will have done what I wanted to, and to the best of my ability. I hope that within the context, they won't miss anything TOO important.

Originally, I had the last line being "and then jilling herself to sleep." but when I had Jennifer proof it for me to make sure it was understood, she said, "what is jilling?" I thought that was a relatively common term for female masturbation, the equivalent to "jacking off" but I guess its a regional thing, sort of like how a a sandwich on a long bun can be called: a sub, a torpedo, a grinder, a poor boy, a hoagie, etc ... I just went with the most common way to say what I meant.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Have you ever had an issue with a regional way of getting your point across, whether in a caption, or even just trying to communicate with someone from another area, state, or country? Not so much that it was a total different language. Everyone was speaking the same native tongue but in a much different fashion.

For instance, I always took Hostels to be more of a European thing, and most people in the U.S. didn't know much about them until the horror movie with the same name came out a few years ago.

Also, how much should a caption for someone be tailored exactly towards the recipient and how much should it be more universal?

The Lonely Staircase

2011-07-08T12:13:00.003-04:00

The photo totally drove the whole idea of this caption. I love Urban Exploring, and envy those in Europe that have so many more cool old buildings than we do here, though being in New England is one of the best spots in the US for doing Urban Exploring.

For those that don't know, Urban Exploring is known in law enforcement circles as "Breaking and Entering" into a abandoned site/building and looking around and taking pictures. Unlike street gangs and wayward youth, we don't ever destroy or vandalize anything, and it pains me to see that when I am in an old space and there is evidence of that going on. There is so much beauty contained in old buildings, and there is definitely an aura about them that transcends time. It pains me to see such wonderful designs in architecture knocked down so that a lifeless parking garage can be erected.

Property owners and police do not want people wandering around as there is liability issues (and of course there are vandals looking to start fires and such) so everything must be done on the down low and secretive. Some places may even consider it a terrorist act because of where they are located. (For a wonderful story/adventure of the London Post Office Tunnels, go to http://www.silentuk.com/?p=2792 )

Anyway, every building/site has a certain aura. Many of the places I've explored are former Mental Health Asylums and they can be some of the creepiest places you'll find, but also the internal structures have a wonderful design, often with sweeping staircases, and elegant stages/ballrooms with most having tunnels that connect one building to another as part of something called the Kirkbride Layout, which was made during the Victorian Age.

That feeling inspired this caption, but I wanted to turn it into an old elegant hotel. So many events happen in a hotel, both good and bad. Memories tend to happen daily and I figured I would tap into that. The building knew it was going to be demolished soon, but wanted one more moment of glory before colapsing in a cloud of dust. I did edit the photo a bit to emphasize the red hair and make the picture a tad bit gloomier, but not by much.

The caption ends abruptly, and that is by design. Most good spooky stories do .. like "and there, dangling from the door handle, was a bloody hook" or "the call is coming from inside the house!"

It does leave the ending somewhat open though. Is Shauna about to become a ghost bride? Is she going to be able to leave the building before it is demolished? Does the building have a groom in mind as well as a magical reception?

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What do YOU think happens at the end? Have you even gone Urban Exploring and what was the coolest place you've ever been? Any abandoned buildings you'd like to explore in your area?

Dressing Down ... Up the Corporate Ladder

2011-07-06T13:28:00.003-04:00

A semi-newbie asked about fonts recently, as I gave them a bit of a review of a caption they had posted to the Haven. I like to do this in private so I don't make anyone look bad. Its one thing to ask for criticism, but another to heap it out in bucket loads in front of the entire viewing world.

The main thing you need to think about with regards to the font and the story in general is to use a readable font. In choosing one, it should be flexible, as in it should be clearly legible no matter how small or large it will appear in the caption. Elaborate and intricate fonts can make it hard to figure out what words are. I mean, have you seen many engagement announcements where you take a minute to figure out WHO is actually getting married, and the other particulars? The fonts should also allow for both capital and lower case letters.

On the other hand, I would try to stay away from Times New Roman and Arial (don't get me started on Comic Sans!) since it will give you a generic look. Perhaps you can search out a font that is related to them which still gives you a distinctive feel that isn't quite so cookie-cutter.

I barely ever change my font, and when I do, its for a reason of trying to achieve a certain feeling, I've used girl handwriting for fonts, and if I'm making a fake newspaper or prop, I'll make it as close to the original as possible. However, its for a one-off and I'll get my good old stand-by for the next caption I make.

The next thing I'd like to mention is the contrast between the background and the text. If you don't chose the right color text with the right background, it won't matter how good the story is, people aren't going to risk a headache to read it. I am all for "non-white" backgrounds but neon green with a yellow text color just screams "ignore me!" I tend to go with a deep color background and a light shade for the text as seen in the above caption. The background color usually has some sort of association with the picture (in this case, her dress) and that way, it tends to tie everything together. (Think about how much easier it is to see a white lettered STOP sign on a red background as opposed to a red lettered STOP on a white sign.)

When I have a dialog, I'll often try to match their clothing (or hair, shoes, etc ...) so that, with a quick glance, you can tell who is talking. When that happens, I want to find a neutral color for the background that won't fight either text color. I suggest using multiple colors for dialog unless you are going the standard route of .. Dave said, "I can't believe that you went back to see the wizard!" "But you told me to!" Jenna replied, while rubbing her nipples in a circular motion ... which I also did up above. It shouldn't be too hard to find the multi-color dialog plan somewhere on this blog.

One thing I would NOT recommend is using different fonts for each speaker. An old saw in publishing is to stay with a single font per page (other than perhaps typesetting the headlines in a different font.) Otherwise, it can be jarring to go from one to another, back and forth.

You may have noticed that I have shadows set when displaying the font in a paragraph. Not every photo-editing program allows you to do this, but it can also bring out the text more and make it zing. Try not to have it too deep or too big; otherwise it will distract viewers from what is actually being read. I have a standard ratio of the depth, size, and direction of the shadow that I've honed over time. I especially need the shadow effects more so now that I am using gradient backgrounds on my captions. It could get buried without that little something to draw your attention inward to the text.

So, to sum up the 2 most important pieces of the font ... make sure that you have a highly readable font, and make sure you set up the font for maximum clarity by setting up a good contrast between the font, the color of the font, and the background you place the font upon.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Now that I've given some basics here, was there anything I missed when it comes to the issue of fonts in a caption? Anything that I might have brushed over that needs to be elaborated upon? What makes a caption more legible for you, the choices relating to fonts that I've discussed above, or the formatting and spacing of the paragraphs in the caption? Both?

Happy 4th of July!

2011-07-04T10:35:00.001-04:00

Hope all those here in the USA are enjoying a day off or at least working less hard than usual.

Making a TG connection here for everyone, I post you this classic intro to a wonderful TV show from the 70's.

I cannot recall how many times I tried spinning around as a kid, trying to turn into her! Never seemed to work though no matter how dizzy I got!

See you all in a day or two!

Dee

Working Out Isn't Really Working Out for you, huh?

2011-07-01T09:59:00.002-04:00

Tatiana has among her preferences listed, "the more manly I act, the more feminine I become" and I felt like I could run with that. I know a few weightlifters / bodybuilders, and they have to be focused to do what they do, but often it becomes like a mania. The amount of substances they have to take, and at what time of day .. the repetitions of each amount of weight, and a focus on very detailed spots of their body.

Something tells me they would make great women, because you could really turn those traits around into diets, clothing, fashion designers, etc .. without much difficulty. The prize is looking good, depending on a somewhat pre-designed set of rules.

This obsession is definitely annoying for those that are not into it, and to outsiders, it seems more like narcissistic behavior. The self-centered nature of the hobby makes romantic partners take notice, and I would think that if magic existed, THIS situation would be happening daily throughout the world!

I don't think I even scratched the surface of what could be made with this caption. I am pretty sure the picture was from a set (I only had 2 pictures) so if I had more, it could have been a multi-panel caption easily. Perhaps I will revisit the concept of this again soon, provided I find a good photo set of a hot chick working out. I still owe a few people, and there are many I haven't captioned in awhile. I can think of a few that would probably enjoy it.

I have a few things in mind for topics (in ways to make captions look better and more polished) coming after the long weekend is over. I would still like to see some questions from the peanut gallery to flesh things out.

Have a great long weekend if you are in the US, and be safe! If you are out of the country, enjoy yourself!

Never Satisfied .. A Guest Birthday Caption!

2011-06-30T12:05:00.001-04:00

This comes from Steffie and was posted last night (which was a few hours before my actual birthday) and since its only one panel, I thought it would be perfect to post today, other than how friggin' awesome it is.

The comments section is just about as fun as caption. Here is Steffie's posting and some of the replies ...

I guess it's that time of year when all the little kiddies cower under their beds, virgins clutch the sheets tightly to their throats and Wal-Mart closes early, just in case. No, I'm not talking about Dennis Kucinich's yearly visit to bean town... I'm talking about the anniversary of the birth of the queen of triple sixes herself!

I know I'm a bit early but I wanted to give everyone the heads up so they can all show you how much they care. So get off your butts girls and start cappin...it's not like Dee turns 666 every year... oh, wait...

from Terri:

Ah, Dee's birthday, I thought I had spotted all the signs and portents. Thunder, lightening, a sale at Hot Topic, the cat suddenly sitting up and looking around before going back to sleep.

from Petra:

Huh, all I saw was butterflies flitting, bunnies hopping, kitties being cute and birds singing. I thought maybe Courtney was coming around, but I guess all the cuteness hustled out of the east coast towards the Midwest in honor of Dee's day of birth.

p.s. Wonderful cap Steffie. I love the layout and the story and the pic and the oh so cute wittle vampire teef. Such an adorable wittle vampire. I just wanna hug her and squeeze her and rub her and pet her.

Wanted to make a final push for 500k today ... we are actually quite close .. something I wasn't sure of yesterday. Please feel free to look at the last few posts and comment. In fact, I would love for some questions to answer for those that ask them.

I am not sure if I'll be posting much over the 3 day weekend. Probably depends on things I have no control over. Keep checking in though and I might have something new!

Answers? I Want Questions!

2011-06-29T12:55:00.000-04:00

Well, since I have been quite busy and with other things going on, I've been mostly whipping up discussion questions on the fly that sort of fit in with whatever caption I've been posting. I usually try to have some forethought in what I am posting with a decent discussion topic already in mind. I haven't had that luxury in the last few weeks.

So, I am opening up the floor to questions at large, especially if it is in regards to some sort of captioning issue that you might have had. Other questions are welcome as well, but I noticed (and have had a few people ask me questions recently about fonts and other more basic issues) I have sort of drifted away a bit from the concrete things and moved into more abstract ideas. I figured that this is where the readers and especially the comment crew were at. They tend to be captioners as well, and I wanted to focus on keeping the discussions fruitful.

However, I started this blog to reach out to all levels. If you are just a lurker, but would like to give TG captioning a shot, post here about what the biggest block has been so far as to why you haven't made something yet.

Lastly, if there is a caption I've done for you and would like to know a bit more about it (and if I can remember creating it!) you can let me know which one it is and maybe I'll whip up something in a future posting.

Blog Stats: Hoping to hit 500k posts by July 1. This is my 102nd post since I started almost a year ago.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Well, I think you need to read the above post again then huh? There are lots of different things you can comment about!