Writer's Commentary: Damsels Anonymous Volume 5

Hello Patrons, I hope you all had a good holiday! I'm back with another Writer's Commentary, this one on the recently completed Damsels Anonymous Volume 5, which I have the complete story attached below. The first part of Volume 6 will drop exclusively for you guys next week with art to follow, so stay tuned!

If you read my commentary for volume 4, you'll know that I completed Damsels Anonymous 5 and 6 before that actually. As I stated before, Destro and I had worked out the plot to volume 4 way back in 2016 when the first volume of DA had come out, and over the years I had mapped out basically the entire story to that. Finally, in 2018 I sat down to write DA volume 4, which I already knew would be a hefty volume at that time. Unfortunately, as is the case, life got in the way. Progress was slow because of work commitments, and then I later found myself in need of some quick cash.  

A longtime reader of mine had been requesting a custom for some time. I'm normally very choosy with customs because they tend to be very time consuming, so if I'm going to be spending months writing a story, I want it to be one that I enjoy. This particular reader had been asking for a custom Damsels Anonymous story, which intrigued me. It seemed fun to write a custom story that took place in my universe with my own characters, but since the DA stories were so serialized and continuity heavy, I had to find a way to fit it in. Since I wasn't finished with volume 4 yet, I realized that I could tweak the ending a bit to leave it open and therefore leave room for this story. I also decided to set this story a year after the events of volume 4 just to give myself and the characters some breathing room. Plus, it allows us to pick up with the characters in an interesting place. 

So, I reached out to this reader and told him that I would take his custom, setting aside Volume 4 to do it. He already had several scenarios in mind and wanted to do a deep sea diving themed story as well as introduce a new female antagonist that he described as a "bikini thief" based on Brazilian model Ana Braga. At first I was a bit hesitant actually about basing a character on Ana Braga because at the time she was quite politically outspoken. Politics aside, I want DA to have no political affiliation at all, whereas this reader had taken a liking to Ana primarily because her politics aligned with his. In the end I relented in including her in the story since she was a model first and political figure second, though this reader would go on to specifically request characters based on political figures in future stories, to which I refused to do. 

So, we had the character and scenarios, but it was up to me to weave in the connecting thread. Seeing how he wanted a diving themed story, I came up with the idea of all these characters searched for a downed plane full of cash, which seemed like a pulpy, noir-type plot that would fit with DA. Sam Raimi's classic (and underappreciated) noir "A Simple Plan" was my primary inspiration for this story. For the bikini thief character, I filled out her character a bit more to make her an internationally wanted criminal that primarily targets women, stripping them of their valuables and taking their bikinis as a calling card/fetish/compulsion. Obviously with this new villain, that means that Ace, the main villain of the series takes a bit of a backseat, but the beauty of establishing Ace and his world means that they get to be an ever present threat. Though Anya is very much the main antagonist of this story, Ace can be a secondary threat to both her and the girls and it feels natural. 

So as I said, the story picks up a year after the ending of volum 4. Felicia is no longer on the police force and runs a cabana bar with Janet, while Gina is still  trying to make amends and wants to convince Felicia to rejoin the force. I knew that I was going to introduce the "beach patrol" idea in volume 4 primarily as a way for Brad to objectify Gina, but I liked the idea of continuing it because it would be an easy way of getting the girls into bikinis, and a way of first bringing them into conflict with Anya. The opening of this story really is just bringing the readers up to speed with what the characters have been up to and then their first encounters with Anya. 

This story also introduces the character of Blondie, the obnoxious frat boy. Though he's a relatively minor character in this, you'll see more of him in the future. Destro in particular took a liking to him and Blondie is quickly growing into a bit of a side antagonist for the girls. 

The laundromat peril was one of many scenarios the client had requested. In addition to having a bondage fetish, he had a "smelly" fetish too, where he enjoyed women being repulsed by a foul odor, and requested a few scenarios with this as well. He particularly wanted the laundromat peril to be after Felicia and Janet had worked out and were sweaty and then gagged with their own sweaty clothes. Later, Anya is bound and gagged in an outhouse, which was also one of his scenarios, where he wanted her helpless in a smelly outhouse. These scenes were quite a challenge to write as I tried to make them sexy and appealing to him but I didn't want them to be repulsive to readers who didn't share this fetish and take them out of it. 

Then we get to the diving portion of this story. The client had wanted a scenario inspired by the 90s Johnny Quest revival, where two characters are caught and tied up on a yacht. Later, Johnny and a friend are later caught by this same villain, and escorted to a room on the boat where the other two characters are bound and gagged. Johnny and the other character are locked in with them, though not gagged, and promptly remove the other character's gags. 

In addition, this client also had a fascination/borderline obsession with a scene from the old serial "Dick Tracy and the G-Men" in which the titular detective and several other police officers are caught by the villain and bound and gagged in a small room. This client often spoke of his frustration with this scene involving all men and wanted to recreate it but with women and I came up with the idea of combining the Johnny Quest scene with the Dick Tracy scene. What ensues is a prolonged capture scene in Anya's yacht with Felicia, Gina, Eva, and Caitlyn bound, gagged and naked. 

This scene though will have lasting implications though, as the possibility of a relationship between Felicia and Eva is set up. This occurred to me as I was writing this scene and I realized there could be some fun drama and sexiness to be mined from these two, especially since given that all Felicia has endured, she's still exploring her sexuality and is a bit repressed, as opposed to Eva. Of course, later, I tease Felicia coming onto Caitlyn, which has the opposite effect. Though characters with fluid sexuality like Felicia and Eva are fun, I still want characters like Caitlyn and Gina to have more rigid sexuality in order to balance them out. 

After this the characters are split, as Gina goes off with Eva and Felicia with Caitlyn. Felicia and Caitlyn stumbled across Brad and Ace's men, and get bound, gagged, and stuffed into barrels. This was inspired by several Hardy Boys stories I read when I was young. One was in a Hardys/Nancy Drew team up where the Hardys stumble on the bad guys and get bound and gagged before being rescued by Nancy, and the other is where they get caught, bound and gagged, and stuffed into barrels to be dropped into the sea. 

The bomb peril between Gina and Eva was another scene requested by the client, who wanted to do a recreation of scene from the classic George Reeves Superman show where Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen are bound and gagged in a room with kryptonite as a trap for Superman. Superman watches from the window knowing he can't enter the room and instructs the bound and gagged Jimmy to kick the kryptonite into the fire place so Superman can use a flamethrower on it. This scene presented a bit of a challenge as to how to adapt it to DA, so I changed the kryptonite to a bomb with motion sensors. Seeing how Janet had defused a bomb once with Felicia, I thought it was appropriate that she was the one who saves the day in this one. Another fun change up in this scene was actually having Eva in peril for once, as she's usually turned on when she's tied up. Adding the ticking bomb meant that Eva got to actually be a damsel for once. 

Then we get to the return of Shelly and her betrayal by Anya. The client was inspired by the 66 Batman show where the villain pours wax over Batman and Robin and turns them into human surfboards, and wanted to have Tanya and Shelly tied to surfboards and left at sea, followed by Brad finding them and having sex with Tanya while putting a vibrator on Shelly. While writing this scene I realized that Lisa was absent, as I still wasn't sure what would happen to her post-volume 4. Briefly, I brainstormed a scene where Anya overpowers Lisa, ties and gags and pours wax on her to turn her into a surfboard like in the Batman scene. It would seem like all would be lost for Lisa as her body is completely covered but the wax would run out just below her nose, leaving her helpless and encased. Anya would then make off with the bound and gagged Shelly and Tanya, leaving Lisa where she was.  I mulled this situation over for some time but ultimately left it out, feeling that it slowed down the momentum of the story. Then I came up with the ending for volume 4 with Lisa being kidnapped by Randy and realized that would explain her absence in this story. So yes reader, if you're wondering where Lisa is, she's still in Carter's Cove, Randy's bound and gagged prisoner, a year later (Don't worry, we'll check back in with her...eventually).

Though an ending for the story had been planned out, there was still a question of what to do with Tanya and Shelly after Brad finds them. I brainstormed two endings for them: one where Tanya stays with Brad and they keep Shelly as their prisoner, and an open ended one where he ties them to a line and drags them behind the boat, only to pull the line back in later to find that it snapped, leaving both women stranded somewhere in the ocean. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the second one. As you all know, I love open endings, and though I always end my stories on cliffhangers, this was a bit of a different one for these characters as their fate is left a mystery. I liked leaving things with Tanya and Shelly uncertain, but from a story standpoint, it also allows Tanya's character to grow as she spends the whole story pining after Brad, but finally realizes that he's using her and rejects him. So I pitched both endings to the client but told him why I ultimately preferred the second one and he agreed, so there it is, Tanya and Shelly's fate is left uncertain. 

Then we get to the final bit,  Gina and Caitlyn take a dive, and Anya catches all four again. For the longest time I had wanted to a scene that homaged the opening of the Peter Benchley adaptation "The Deep" which features an extended wet t-shirt scene with star Jacqueline Bissett. What would only have made this scene better was if she got tied up right after, so I came up with Gina and Caitlyn diving, only to resurface to find Anya with Felicia bound and gagged, and she then makes the other two strip, forces Gina to tie and gag Caitlyn, and then Anya ties and gags Gina. 

At the very end, the girls are left hanging, literally, as Anya leaves them suspended on a hook and makes off with the money. With this, the client wanted to do a scene from the Rescue Rangers cartoon where three of them are bound, gagged, and suspended from a hook. There wasn't much more that he specified so I decided to end the book on this but then follow it up with the girls being found and the police being called, except the only officer to answer the call is Eva. I had always intended for Eva to become more of an antagonist as the story went on, but this volume very much quickened her journey, as I realized that she wouldn't be able to resist all three of her fellow officers bound, gagged, naked, and helpless. 

After the three helpless women are placed into the back of the car, Eva drives off. Janet rides her bike past the car, and the helpless police women try to get her attention but fail. This was inspired by a scene I stumbled across on Youtube from an Indian TV show where three male detectives are bound and gagged in the back of a car and try to call for help on someone peddling by on a bike. It's one of my favorite male bondage scenes and I've wanted to recreate it for years, and this story finally gave me the chance to. 

Of course that's where the story ends, with Anya getting away and the girls captured by one of their own. It wouldn't be a DA story if it didn't end on a cliffhanger, but don't worry true believer, as you'll soon see what happens next for the ladies of the Marston's Pointe Sheriff's Department, and Anya as well...