.. I've lived it a thousand times! So don't push my buttons!
I owed the lovely Katie Mills from Sugar and Spice a caption, so I went into my Darkhives for pantyhose pictures, figuring something would inspire me. The picture I used for this caption was saved MANY years ago, and I don't remember even viewing it back then. The argyle pattern made me think of guys socks, and the rest of the outfit had that "recently changed into a girl" look that I knew I could use.
Now we get into overused tropes. I know some people like it, but I am not particularly a fan of the "describe all the changes that the clothing takes on" transformation, especially in a TG Caption, where you can SEE THE OUTFIT they are wearing. I've had to write them that way for some people as its in their preferences, but I'd much rather use that room to describe the situation or tie something else from the picture into the caption plot line. At this point in time, I think its enough to write, "and his clothes mutated, taking on a form that would fit his newly feminized body," and leave it at that .. or perhaps describe the new clothes quickly.
So, on that note, looking at that photo, the whole "his socks turned translucent, as they slowly crept up his legs, blah blah blah" popped into my head, and at that moment, I knew what the caption was going to be about. Yes, it IS a bit meta, but only as much as "Scary Movie" was to horror. Katie knows all about the conventions and tropes of TG fictions and captions, and is lamenting the fact that she is reading YET ANOTHER ONE .. not realizing that its triggering a spell somehow.
I don't mind using cliches when I can actually do something with them. Of the clothing ones, the whole "pants fused into a tube and slowly turned into a skirt" is my least favorite line .. so I made sure to use it, hoping that perhaps I can kill it from exposure! My first thought was to go all out and list a bunch of the changes, but I didn't want to bog it down and keeping it short is the best idea, since the story really just highlights a good picture, which I reversed so the buttons would be on the "wrong" side so Katie would be correct! At least until the spell finished!
My favorite story involving clothes changing a guy is an old one called, "Andrew" by Grimbo. I know it isn't quite the most well written, but there is something about it that made me excited to discover it so many years ago. I wonder if Grimbo is still around, perhaps as a different persona, still writing stories or creating captions.
DISCUSSION QUESTION: You know of any other stories or captions that are similar to the one I linked to my Grimbo? Figured I might have missed one or two over the years!