Particular kinks

It's Saturday, and the wife has gone out for the day, leaving this particularly horny devil alone. So what's a guy to do? Spend time contemplating his navel, of course.

I don't know about you but when I'm 'feeling it' and I'm not in the mood to write (which sometimes doesn't happen when I'm just plain horny, to be honest) I end up wandering the web a lot, often coming back to the same haunts. I expect my stops are much the same as many of you; from YouTube to Yahoo! Groups and back again, with a few side-trips to the odd kinky site.

What I've always found interesting is that there are so many subtle variations on the 'big' fetishes, and that they often have devoted followings. For example I'm very much into my superheroines, as I'm sure will be no surprise to you. Particularly, I'm into superheroine transformations, although more specifically than that I enjoy watching women getting dressed as superheroines. The reason the image at the top of the blog holds so much power over me (of Betty masking as Spider-Girl) is because it's a transformation using clothing.

I'm getting this specific, by the way, because I know there are some people out there who enjoy superheroine transformations, but specifically a la Wonder Woman TV show (spinning, flash of light etc) and She-Hulk (growing stronger and bigger; this links into the superheroines-as-powerful women thing). So already, I'm in a niche of a niche.

It's much the same thing with mask fiction, of course. Although there's plenty of female-to-female mask fiction (and I'm writing it!) generally speaking mask fiction often includes transgender elements. But we're a niche of general TG and TV fiction, a niche which I'm sure plenty of people have no interest in. What I'm writing in Spider-Girl is even more specific; superheroine mask fiction, and specifically F2F. Sometimes it amazes me anyone's even interested in this stuff, as it's so specific.

Then again, the more I look around this world wide web of ours the less I get surprised. It's the connections I find fascinating. Take superheroines: the majority of fetish sites seem to focus on bondage situations (Superheroines in Bondage), or girls-in-peril type stuff (Superheroines Demise). There have been a couple of sites starting recently (like SuperSexyHeroines) where the peril is diminished or even not there at all, but they tend to favour the 'powerful woman' model, which is epitomised in 'musclewomen' sites. There are actually precious few, if any, sites where the prime focus is on superheroine transformations; this has led to me over the years buying subscriptions for sites where I have no interest in the primary subject matter (peril sites, especially) just to find the few photos or videos where a gorgeous gal is pulling on her costume.

There's a popular theory these days which I happen to subscribe to - the idea of the 'Long Tail' where essentially every single taste in the world will eventually be catered to, as more and more of us come together via the internet. Ten years ago when I first found Kerry's home page (with her in Spider-Woman costume and latex mask), and realised that (ye gods) I was not alone in my weird fetish, I never would have thought that today we'd be getting closer and closer to commercial companies taking my fetish on as a money making idea. We've seen it start in Asian countries - it's only a matter of time before it comes over here.

I'll stop here before I start banging a familar drum. But that's just what's on my mind today. What's your thoughts? Do you find your own particular kinks well catered for out there, or do you find yourself wandering the web looking for interesting stops?

Old poll, new poll

Very quickly in and out today. Don't look at me like that, I can totally go for a long time and you know it....

Thanks to all of you who voted on my identical polls here and on Maskingwriter - I appreciate knowing people's thoughts, and I always strive to improve. Here are the combined results:


So come on, who's the wiseass who voted for 'Poor'?? Nah seriously, if you didn't like it - sorry, but please let me know why. (Not accounting for general taste of course. There's plenty of fiction out there I'll never like despite how many masks might be in it.)

Of course with Issue #4 out that means the cycle begins again... so if you've read the issue feel free to give me some feedback in the poll on the right hand side of the main page, here.

Alright, off to work once more. Anyone with money want to be my patron??

Gradual progress

So I finished Spider-Girl Issue #9 last night, which I'll tell you is currently called Double Life. Dun-dun-daaaah!! Yeah I know, that reveals practically nothing, but that's sort of the point... heh.

Took a little longer to finish than I expected, this issue, but I think that might be partially because it's a new arc, so I'm finding my feet with it - and the plot is totally new, too, as I threw out my original Enforcers idea and went with something different (as previously mentioned). I'm looking forward to where this arc's going, but this first issue (of four, probably, for the arc) is mostly just setup. The big payoffs will come in the following issues. Anyway, I wanted to let you know it's still rolling.

In other writing, I've also written a bit more recently on Project T, and that's looking better, too. It's been on the backburner for a while as I've concentrated on Project SG (Spider-Girl) but I wanted to get working on it again. I've replotted the ending, and it's a lot tighter than before... so I'll just keep plugging away at it. I'm planning to release this as one big piece, but as I'm maybe half way through it, with 15k words written, it'll be a while before it surfaces. What I'm absolutely not going to do is release half of it, or something. It's not a serial, it's one piece, and I'm not falling into the 'release a bit of it to get feedback' trap again.

If you're wondering what Project T is about, by the way... well I'm not going to tell you. I will tell you it's primarily focused on male-to-female masking, and that it's more 'R' rated (that's 18 for us Brits, and sorry, I don't know movie ratings elsewhere!) than SG. The story isn't exactly earth-shatteringly original, but I think it's running quite nicely, and I'm enjoying it. Tonally (Wanky Writer Alert!) it's completely different from SG, which is a really nice change when writing.

In fact, I think I'll go tinker with it now. Cheerio!

New release: Spider-Girl, Issue #4

What will the final fate of the Chameleon be? Will Spider-Girl be rid of him forever? And what will happen when Betty Brant gets close to Reed Richards... while disguised as Susan Storm??

All is revealed in...

Issue #4: Exiled

Download from Maskingwriter (Yahoo! Group)

Enjoy - comments are welcome as always.

(In case you're wondering, Issue #9 isn't quite done yet... but I've been tinkering on other stuff, too. Never fear, we're all good. More soon.)

Checking in

I almost checked in with you folks last night, as I was attempting to drunk-write, and was going to talk about that experience. But surprisingly after the fog began to roll in I began to get used to the restricted vision, and the ability to write came back. Not before I'd written this sentence though:

Peter Parker paced the perimeter of his paltry parlour as he planned for his partner's presence.

Do you think Stan Lee was ever tempted to do the same? I swear it makes sense in the context of the story. But booze may have had something to do with its creation.

So, Spider-Girl #9 is rolling along, about two-thirds done I think. Not as fast as I like, due to various work hassles leaving me in no mood to create recently, but I'm pushing through.

I'm starting to think that there's really something to the argument that there's no such thing as writer's block - just writers who block. In other words, there's no special force preventing you from writing. It's just you. And sometimes you do literally have to sit at the keyboard for a couple of hours to make that blockage shift. I also find Senokot helps. (If that works too well, try some Imodium AD.)

The point is, sometimes I haven't felt like I was 'in the mood' to write, sat down to do it, and gotten good stuff. Otherwise I feel creative, sit down, and nothing comes out. (It helps then to switch over to things like plots. Sometimes writing is just getting it down, while plotting needs the real creative ideas. Sometimes.)

Anyway. Issue #9, as I say, is almost done. I would imagine it'll be finished before I realise Issue #4, but I also doubt I'm going to be able to keep to a 'finish an issue, release an issue' schedule for all sorts of reasons. So hopefully, look for Issue #4, featuring the final fate of the Chameleon, this weekend on Maskingwriter.

I think that'll do it. Thanks to everyone who voted on the poll, either here or on Maskingwriter. Keep your comments and emails coming, especially if you've got ideas or suggestions for stuff in Spider-Man history that might work well for Spider-Girl.

Oh, and for those of you totally uninterested in Betty Brant, even if she is a mistress of disguise, I'm working on Project T on and off, too. That's pretty much the opposite of SG.

New poll - SG #3 insta-feedback

Hey folks, I really appreciate the feedback I've had so far on Spider-Girl Issue #3 in comments and on email... but I'm interested to get more. Yes, I am that egomaniac.

So to make things easy if you don't want to write a long email or comment there's a new poll, sitting on the right hand site of the page. Vote and tell me what you thought of the story if you've read it. If you haven't, go read it at Maskingwriter already. Then come back and vote.

Of course, your thoughts, ideas etc are very welcome; if you haven't seen my comments in response to, erm, Anonymous' thoughts on Issue #3, you might want to read them... and also you can get a sneak peek at the story arcs coming up, too.

Issue #8 is being polished, btw. Issues 9-12 are plotted and next up. And Issue #4 will get released... soon.

A sneak preview of some story arcs

I told myself I'd talk about arcs. Not the curved things. Story arcs. In other words, connected stories within a larger piece of serialised fiction.

As you might be able to tell I'm really getting into the serialised fiction thing with Spider-Girl (or, BBtSSG if you want to go acronym crazy). I just love plotting out long-term, crazy stuff, especially for a character like Betty. It started years ago just after I had my "Eureka!" moment - the one that got me out of the dead-end of Issue #2 (see below for more details). With that block gone, suddenly I wanted to figure out where I could go next.

Before too long I'd sketched out ideas for a whole run on Spider-Girl, from Issue #3 to Issue #21 and beyond. So I thought it'd be fun to give you a sneak preview of what's coming up in the future, as well as talking about what's happened so far.

Just so you know, I highly doubt that these arcs will remain in place exactly as is - so far I've found that if anything, I underestimate how long they'll take to tell, and that the characters have a way of derailing the plot. Pretty much spoiler free, but if you don't want to know anything at all, don't read on.

The first arc - The Chameleon Strikes - you've already read. This took place in the initial first two issues, featuring the Chameleon. In the original run of Amazing Spider-Man, the Chameleon was a one-issue villain (and didn't even fill the whole issue!), appearing as he did in ASM #1. Naturally, him being a master of disguise meant he figured somewhat prominently in my early planning for Spider-Girl. In fact, while I can't remember the details, I think the basic idea of Spider-Girl using the Chameleon's own disguises was pretty much the genesis for the entire series.

The second arc - The Chameleon's Fate - features The Fantastic Four, and the end of the Chameleon (or is it?), in issues #3 and #4. It also introduces Susan Storm to Betty's life.

The FF were part of my great plotting revelation, and helped me get out of my own dead end. As the original idea of Spider-Girl was sort of based around Amazing Spider-Man #1, that's where the impetus came from; I remembered that the other story in ASM #1 featured the FF, and suddenly realised "Hey, instead of killing the Chameleon... why doesn't Betty just exile him to somewhere she'll never see him again??"

As I thought it was a stretch to have Peter invent a dimensional portal, in comes Reed Richards. What's nice is, the opening of Issue #3 is very similar to ASM #1, but the reason Spider-Girl goes to the FF is very different from Spider-Man's (he tries to get a job!).

Where things seriously diverge from Spider-Man's universe is when Susan Storm enters the picture. I never really expected that Susan would come to life the way she did. As I wrote about her, I realised her personality was very similar to Betty's, only inverted. Where Betty craved to be seen and be a glamourous superheroine, Susan sometimes wished for privacy and a life away from the public eye. That led naturally in the writing to the scenes at the end of Issue #3... something I never expected to happen. But I'm very glad it did....

The third arc is actually now complete, too, but I can't name without spoiling the villain. It runs for four issues, from #5 to #8, although originally I plotted it to be three. Just to tease you on the plot: it's the debut of a very well known villain from Spider-Man lore, although with a few new twists. A familiar face from an earlier issue makes a return. Spider-Girl commits a crime. And Susan shows up again.

The fourth arc I can give a codename to... 'Brother'! This arc was originally going to see the introduction of The Enforcers. This was what I plotted literally years ago, but to be honest I was never 100 percent happy with it. The Enforcers are kind of lame, the plot didn't really fall right, and it just didn't 'pop'.

However, the way the third arc wrapped up gave me a whole new jumping off point, and some more research into early Spider-Man stories gave me a different villain to play with. Someone much more interesting to write. Therefore, out go The Enforcers, in comes... someone else.

This is up next for me to write - I literally finished plotting it this morning, and I really like how it's turned out. It very neatly parallels two original Spider-Man stories while adding the 'unique elements' you've come to expect. It's plotted to be four issues, but it might end up as three.

The fifth arc we'll codename 'Crossover'. Unlike the previous arcs, this one is pretty much standalone and can work at any point. It's almost like a crossover event for Spider-Girl, and while it starts off coming from the existing plotlines, it then goes a whole different way.

I'm really, really looking forward to this. It doesn't parallel any existing Spider-Man stories, so it's a blank canvas, plot-wise. It looks like it should start in Issue #13, and I'm glad it's happening in 'Year Two'. By this point the characters are established, we know how the universe works (kind of) and you know what to expect. Which is exactly when I need to throw you guys a complete curveball.

This arc started life as a kinky idea that led to a very specific, very vivid fantasy... one that was so vivid I ending up writing it down as prose, with no setup, no ending - just one scene. The idea was so damn delicious that I just called the file 'Spider-Girl future' and left sitting on my hard disk.

In that famed mammoth plotting session mentioned above, the one idea expanded into a much larger story, and then into a massive epic. That initial scene will end up in the first issue of a huge arc that currently should run for nine issues (potentially #13 to #21) but I might find it runs shorter, or longer. I am very excited about writing this - it introduces a whole raft of new, but well-known characters - but I have a strong feeling that what I have plotted will not end up being what I write. We'll see. That's the fun part.

The sixth arc is all I have plotted up to right now, although I have plenty of ideas for beyond this - some of those ideas suggested by you folk in the past few days!

This arc should take Betty places she's never been before, emotionally. Plotting this was when I started to realise I could really do anything I want; I could play with the Marvel Universe in interesting ways, and start echoing classic Spidey stories without repeating them. I even pay homage with the title of the arc... but it's a huge spoiler, so it has to stay secret for now. No idea how many issues this'll be, but it'll probably be shorter after the marathon that'll be before it.

I realise now, typing all this, that I'm really tempting fate here. After all, I wrote two issues of Spider-Girl seven years ago and then never went further than that (although now I'm smart enough to see a dead-end story when I write one). Still, it's very possible that the spark will die, the bloom will go off the rose, or other similar metaphors... and that I'll crash and burn before I ever get to the later stages. I guess part of the reason for writing this post is that someone can refer to it later if I slack off.

If I do make it though... if I do... it'll be really something for me. I'm only just done with Issue #8, and I'm well past 50,000 words. So at the current going rate for issues I'll be closing in on 200,000 words when I get to the sixth arc. And that's one big pile of 'comics'.

Let's see how we do, eh?

New release: Spider-Girl, Issue #3

With a seven-year gap that makes today's Marvel Comics look like a well-run organisation, I am proud to present...

Issue #3: New Dimensions

Download from Maskingwriter (Yahoo! Group)

Enjoy, and Happy Easter!

Saturday** afternoon tease... well, kinda

I'm backing up my backups, today. Transferring things to DVD, in fact - boy, I lead an exciting life - and I actually found a couple of things I'd been idly looking for. Wooooo. I also found a few things I'd totally forgotten about, one of which is below. But first, because I like exposition, a little background:

Back in 2000 or so I started MaskFiction.com (No, it's dead. Yes, feel free to take the domain) and worked for a while on gathering as much mask-related fiction as I could into one place. Eventually it ceased through a lack of interest from most people, and also my feeling that frankly, I was spending a lot of time and energy on it and getting not much back. That's not really the point though.

During that period ClosetMonster and I (yes, that ClosetMonster) talked a bit about possibly doing an online comic together using Poser. I threw around some ideas with him and unsurprisingly, my ideas then were much the same as my ideas now!

I had an idea (still do) for continuation of the Spider-Woman 'legacy' which would put someone else in the suit, involve lots of disguises. CM did the test image you see below; I supplied the text.

While I highly doubt this story will ever see the light of day (unless there's a hugely talented* Poser artist reading this with a lot of time on their hands; if so, leave a comment) I still think it's a cool image, and thought it'd be fun to share. Thanks, CM.

Oh, just FYI - Issue #8's about two-thirds done, I reckon. Easily should be finished this weekend as I'm off for four days (Easter, yay) but as I'm away all day Sunday, expect a probable Monday release of (confusingly) Issue #3, as promised.

Anyone out there want to do a Poser pin-up of Spider-Girl?

* Don't think I'm kidding here either. The scripts I write, you'd need to be a 3D and Poser whiz. Oh, and add to that I'm a perfectionist. But hey, the results would be great.

** Yeah, it's a long weekend. Sure felt like Saturday yesterday.

First poll results

One more thing before work. So, arbitrarily, I decided to end the first poll today. Well, arbitrarily and also because I wanted to put a new poll up. Here's the results for those interested - click for a close-up:

Thanks to everyone who voted. To summarise the results real quick - a large portion of you are 'old school', having read Beneath the Veil waaaaay back when I first threw it on the web. Hey. How are ya. Great to see you again.

Pretty much everyone, in fact, had read BTV at some point before now, which I guess is good because it tells me I can't repeat old tricks!!

Welcome indeed though to you five complete virgins (ahem) who just read BTV for, I would guess, the first time on Maskingwriter. I hope you enjoyed, and that you stick around for more.

Oh and everyone? New poll's here.

Cold

As I feared, my contracted cold is slowing me down a bit. I have started on Issue #8 as I hoped to, but progress has been slow. Although there has been progress.

It hasn't been helped by the fact that I'm trying to re-plot issues 9-10, and I've ended up throwing everything I had out and starting from scratch. Plotting is hard. Did I mention that?

Start with trying to use original Spider-Man stories as basic plot outlines. Check. Then try to completely re-jigger them to work with Betty Brant, who has none of the same neuroses or plot elements as Peter Parker. Uh, check. Finally, add enough 'kinky' elements that'll keep me - and you - interested. Hmmm. Check. It's like rewriting Shakespeare, making a supporting character the main character, and then adding erotic elements while still keeping the basic plot.

And did I just compare Stan Lee and Steve Ditko to Shakespeare? Why yes I did.

Off to sniff and cough at work.

Re-releasing: Spider-Girl Issue #1 and #2

No, not an April Fool's joke. I've seen several of those today - some good, some shite - but I wouldn't mess with you. Well, not much. Maybe next year....

So, I promised a re-release this weekend and here it is. I've done a bit of cleaning up and a little tweaking on Issue #1 and Issue #2 of Spider-Girl, AKA Project SG, AKA... to give the series its new, full-fledged title*...

Issue #1: Rebirth
Download from Maskingwriter (Yahoo! Group)

Issue #2: Taking Sides
Download from Maskingwriter (Yahoo! Group)

Issue #1 actually ended up about 600 words or so longer than it was originally, although it's still the shortest of the seven finished issues. Issue #2 is pretty much the same length, as it was originally, I just tweaked it slightly. The plot remains the same in both, it's just more detail. But if you haven't read these stories for years (or ever) please do give them a go.

All going to plan, next week I'll be releasing brand-new Spider-Girl material, starting with Issue #3.

The only thing that may stop me is the onset of this cold I just got, which my wife's been incubating for about three weeks. I thought I was safe but apparently not. Luckily for you I shrug off most colds quick... I just don't have much capacity to write when my head feels like a cotton ball. Wish me luck.

* Comics nerds will get the ref. For everyone else, it just makes it clear we ain't talking about one of the many other Spider-Girls floating around in Marvel continuity these days.