So, unmitigated evil is an inherited trait apparently! Look out Dad!
Got home from work and was ready to see if I could find some pictures to caption. I'm about 4-5 ahead of the blog right now, so it would be awesome if I could get 1-2 weeks latitude, so if I take a vacation, get sick, or have a busy week, it won't impact the site too much.
So, I signed in and found an email saying I had a WuFoo question, which when I opened it, turned out to be a request. I don't usually do those, as I prefer trades, but I took it as a challenge because it wasn't something I usually use for a TG topic. As from the Wufoo page:
I'd love to see a cap where a mother hypnotizes her son into forgetting who he was and becoming her identical twin in every way.Another reason why I wouldn't usually do it is that the person remained anonymous BUT I figured I would limit myself to a half hour TOTAL from starting to look for a photo through final proofing. If I couldn't finish, I would post what I had and write about where my problems occurred.
So I fired up my Google Fu and typed in identical twin females and got some pretty good source material, but this picture struck me as I was glancing quickly. This photo was about 100 pictures down, and a good size too. I had to say no to a few others that were just too small. From there, I could draw out the background colors to the caption setting and play with the story as I was writing it.
Overall, I totally wrote this on the fly, from beginning to end. I had to come up with a motivation, as I love my daughter unconditionally, and would never harm her, and I needed something that I could at least justify their reasoning and actions. I think I captured that fairly well in the first paragraph.
Then I tried to bring it around to how you could get the son to be on board, at least somewhat. It furthers the justification in her mind, and is almost trying to convince herself that she has done right by her son, now daughter. The third paragraph gives us the answer of how she was able to pull off them looking so much alike. The treatments and procedures made him look older and female, and made her look younger too, and all it took was her ex-hubby's prized possession, which incidentally he probably left for his son. Also, don't discount the fact that his dad "took her youth from her" so why not take away some of his son's youth to even the score.
Then I was somewhat in a quandry, as I only had so much space left and how was I going to wrap it up in a nice little bow? Well, Mom wanted them to be alike, so of course, that would include the subliminal procedures to make him love her unconditionally. In addition, there is probably a bit of Stockholm Syndrome, and it is just easier to live with her if you just give in to her every whim. At some point, he was probably broken down, for her mom to build her up again in a feminine way to her exacting requirements.
Then I thought, "what if the new daughter LOVES what has been done in some twisted way?" That could be the core of their business, perhaps in the back room and only when needed. Otherwise, they are just twin sisters that run a beauty salon. Then they would be EXACTLY alike . and even more so than the mother would've thought she could've done .. both are now truly psychotic!
That was the wrapper for me, and I just had to finish with a zinger, and hopefully it brings up a fun little irony: That they both think that they are doing good deeds, that they aren't the evil doers! As I was getting ready to post this to the blog, I realized that their first "client" was most likely going to be his dad .. aka her ex-hubby. It had taken me about 24 minutes when I created it, so adding something wouldn't have been a big deal, but I decided to leave it as is., maybe to show that no matter how well you think you did, take a few minutes to wander off, then review it again with fresher eyes.
I hope that everyone enjoyed this little step by step run through the creative process that this time challenge gave me. And whoever asked for this caption, I definitely want to hear from you in the comment section! As it is a blog exclusive, I wouldn't mind others letting me know what they think of it as well, good and/or bad. When I'm in the mood, time challenges can be fun to work on!
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: How did I do? Did I nail it, or strike my thumb with the hammer repeatedly? Without time restraints, do you think the caption could've turned out better, or is it already in a sweet spot and over thinking it would've diluted the immediacy of the caption?