Monthly Themes

Hello to everyone who makes into this corner of my captioning universe. I wanted to take some time to chat about some plans I've had and will be doing in the upcoming months.

First, while I did not officially publicize it, I have completed the first ever month of themed captions which I am calling "May Flowers". Inspired in part by Fetishes and Fantasies' Gaypril month of gay, trans, and other LGBTQ+ identified models, I spent all of May on Twitter posting caps using exclusively trans or otherwise identifying models. There were a few reasons why I decided to try this that are worth sharing:

• Trans models are significantly underrepresented in captions, especially in those that would be good matches for the arc that a trans person might go on (e.g. boy wants to become a woman and does).
• I wanted to normalize the use of a trans models in caps because transwomen are women. If I write a story about a guy becoming a hot bitch, it doesn't have to be some cis-female model or pornstar - plenty of transwomen fit the hot bitch vibe as well.
• Relatedly, there are some AMAZING trans individuals I've found during this process and I think diversity of model choices is good for captioners and readers to expand their visual options

In doing this month of caps, there were a few things I learned that I thought were worth sharing/discussing as well as I attempt to improve as a writer/hone a concept like May Flowers:

• I have mixed feelings about discussing all this after the fact as opposed to actively promoting this themed month. On the one hand, I didn't want to make a big deal of it because it shouldn't be a big deal that I happened to use trans models as opposed to cis models. Conversely, I was quite excited to do this and wanted to share/see if people noticed when otherwise it may have just flown under the radar.
• In doing something like this, I had some internal deliberation about the appropriateness of this theme and some of my captions. I suppose there is an argument to be had that TG/TF transformations might fetishize the idea/concept of a trans individual or alternatively utilize names that are not appropriate for the model (e.g. sissy, bitch, crossdresser, etc.). Sometimes it is difficult to balance an attempt to promote a group of people like LGBTQ+ with fictional fantasies that sometimes are at odds with the goals/beliefs of individuals in the group. I think it gets into a larger moral question about some of the themes I write about (non-con transformations, "sissification" or "bimbofication", etc.) but the thought I settled on is that since I do stories like this with both cis and trans models, the stories are not reflective of the model so much as me as a writer. Perhaps that's naïve or shortsighted, but I think captioning inherently crosses into some gray areas that you have to tolerate as a writer or you wouldn't be writing at all.
• From a writing standpoint, one disappointment I had was that I didn't write any longer stories. I had a few good ideas I really liked, but nothing came to fruition before the end of the month. My hope is that I will finish these up and have a backlog with no deadline until next May which will make the 2nd edition of these theme much better!
• Lastly, this was an interesting month of writing from a process standpoint. It made me realize how many of my usual image sources are almost entirely cis models and required me to do more research and find other sites to find appropriate images. The benefit of this is now I do have resources for next year and anytime I want to mix in a variety of gender identities into my caps

That was a lot of reflection about the past month - so what is next? Well I'm excited to say that I will be doing something I'm calling "Joint June & July" over the next two months. This will include a variety of collaborations with different writers/friends in the community, ranging from co-written stories/caps, an exchange of caps in different universes, and even a big multi-person project which I'm looking forward to participating in. No spoilers yet, but keep an eye on this site and my Twitter for updates to start rolling in!