Why Are You Here?

I've often asked my self what is it that makes this blog unique, and what do I bring to the table in the tg captioning world? Why would someone take the time to see what I've created? One of the hardest things for a person to do is make a reasonable assessment of their strengths and weaknesses. There is a major tendency to swing to one of the two extremes, either thinking we are much more amazing and impressive, or much more pathetic and worthless, than we really are. So forgive me if I fall too far into one of these two categories as I explore this topic, I'm only human.

I'll start with what I know to be my weak points, the reasons that no one decides to check out my blog. I'm not a designer. In fact, I have almost no natural talent when it comes to the visual arts. I have a basic ability to spot quality work, but not much beyond a simple decision of whether I like the way something looks. If asked why, I'll mutter some nonsense about flow, or negative space, or any other buzzwords that come to mind in an effort to seem somewhat intelligent. But I know my captions are never going to be the best looking. There are a lot of others who have much more talent and put much more effort into their designs than I ever will. So I just try to make mine look as presentable as possible, and I'd like to think I've been making some good progress since I started making captions.

I'm also not very good with series. Longer pieces tend to bore me, but not for the obvious reason of I just don't like writing them. The problem is the longer a piece, the more perfect I want to make it. I get stuck in the planning stages for so long that when it comes time to actually write the story, I've lost most of my interest. I write most of captions after a burst of inspiration, so the longer the time between that initial moment, and the time of writing, the harder it is for me to finish a piece and be satisfied with the outcome.

So what am I good at?

Writing. Not planning out how I want a caption to look, or what I want to say, but actually writing. Most of my work is single panels because that's the fastest way for me to get from idea to typing. There's no time to think, I just go. I write almost all of my captions in a single sitting. I figure out where I want to start and just keep writing until I'm out of ideas. In fact, almost all of my captions from the point of view of a mistress talking to her sub are completely stream of consciousness, with editing being limited to typos and grammar mistakes. For my other captions, once I'm finished pouring out everything in my head, I go back over it, removing, replacing, and rearranging until I can see a story emerge. After that I'll flesh out any parts that I think are missing, give it one last read through, and then publish. The entire process usually takes between 30 minutes and an hour.

To be a little more specific, I've always been better at writing dialogue than descriptions. I know a lot of people who read tg captions are looking for a transformation sequence and usually a general plot that drives the story. While I've been told I do both of these fine, they don't come as easily as dialogue. If I can tell the story just by having one of the characters talk, I'll do it. I love writing monologs, they're great for character development and I can usually tie in the image I'm using pretty well. But this style is limited to shorter time frames, more of a snapshot than a full story. And while I enjoy mixing it up by using a variety of narrative styles, short dialogue pieces are always going to be my go to option.

At the end of the day, that's what I'd like to think I can contribute to the community. Not full length stories or gorgeous designs, but well crafted, and well written moments from a larger picture. If I can get the reader invested in the world I've created with just a single panel, I've done my job. So while I'll continue to try to improve my designs, and create larger and more elaborate stories, for the most part I'm happy to create a more traditional style of caption, a brief bit of text tied to an image.

Now if I could only find the time to make more of them.