Writer's Commentary: Damsels Anonymous Volume 2

Hello Patrons,

It's almost another month, which means it's time for another writer's commentary, and this time we're going to be discussing the second volume of Damsels Anonymous. Like with the first one, there's going to be a lot of overlap since I essentially mapped out the first three volumes at the same time so I'll try to keep things contained to volume 2 as much as possible. 

As I said before, I had planned out that Volume 1 would end with Felicia's capture and Gina taking her place. I knew it would be a tall order to introduce Gina as an antagonist in volume 1 and then make her the main character of volume 2, so I wanted to make sure that her motivations were sympathetic with her getting revenge on Felicia for kidnapping her. It seems to have worked, since Gina has become a bit of a fan favorite character. Originally my plan was for Gina to continue on as a supporting player after volume 3 with Felicia as the lead, but DA has evolved a bit into an ensemble piece and Gina has very much grown into a co-lead opposite Felicia.

Another thing that I wanted to do was make Gina as different from Felicia as possible. Since Felicia is brash and impulsive, I tried to make Gina more level-headed, and though she a level of vanity like Felicia, she lacks Felicia's insecurity, which is also why I think readers have taken to her character. Gina's personality is more of a natural leader as well, which is why she's taken such an active role in the stories going forward (you'll see more of this in volumes 5 and 6). 

In addition to the characters of Caitlyn and Eva getting more to do in this chapter, Lisa, Shelly's henchwoman is also introduced, in addition to the character of Jessica, and we get a bit of foreshadowing for the coming of The Queen. I started this volume soon after finishing volume 1, and my plan was to introduce more members of Ace's organization in each volume. Since we saw Jack in the last part, I knew that I wanted to focus this volume on the casino, so I came up with the idea of the King character, who would be the public "face" of the organization. He's obviously the least colorful of the villains, but plays a vital role of businessman. 

At this point Destro and I had already started the beginning of a long correspondence together, and I had a few vague ideas for a dominatrix villainess for future stories. Together we put our heads together and came up with more for her, which eventually became volume 4 (more on that later),  but I thought that since The Queen was going to become such a major villain in later stories that I would start alluding to her in this one. 

I knew what situations I wanted to get Gina and the girls in, and set about coming up with a story to fit around them. For the first scene in which Gina and Jessica are bound, gagged, and placed in a car which is then sent to be crushed, I wanted to homage a scene from an episode of The Incredible Hulk called "Of Guilt, Models, and Murder". In the episode, Banner along with another guy are bound, gagged, and placed in a car which is then placed on a conveyor to be crushed. Of course, Banner hulks out and saves the other guy.

I tried thinking of the circumstances leading up to this scene and came up with the idea that Gina was called to help a friend in distress and they both ended up bound and gagged for their troubles. The idea of a potential rescuer becoming a damsel appealed to me so then it came down to figuring out who was the other damsel and what kind of trouble was she in. With my stories, I always try to keep them simple, so I liked the idea of a character who wasn't a cop or anyone stumbling across something she shouldn't have and then becoming a target for it. The rest fell into place once I figured out that I wanted to base this character off of model Jennifer Nicole Lee.

One of my favorite models, Jennifer is a hot fit milf who often would get caught by paparazzi having "wardrobe malfunctions" which were clearly engineered to draw attention to her. Either way, they were sexy and always showed off her great body. Jessica is very heavily based off of her, complete with being a former BBW who got fit and the fake wardrobe malfunctions. Making her a trainer and model would be a way to tie her to Gina's past and give her a reason to reach out to Gina for help as well. 

Jessica soon presented a problem though, as I wasn't sure what to do with her after the car crusher scene. As I brainstormed this, I came up with the idea to have Shelly find out about Jessica possibly having incriminating evidence on Ace, which would lead to Shelly kidnapping her. This what lead to the creation of the Lisa character, who would be a mole for Shelly working for Ace as well as a henchmen for Shelly. Also at the time, I had just discovered model Linda Steele and was pretty obsessed with her, so Lisa was based off of her.

I came up with the idea that Jessica would be become a sort of running gag/motif in the story where she would always pop up in some sort of bondage in the background somewhere. From there, I came up with the idea of the burglars breaking into Shelly's house and find the bound and gagged Jessica and then selling her to The Queen as a way of leading to Jessica being a character who was a perpetual prisoner, plus it would be the first foreshadowing of the big bad for part 4. Eventually, my plans for Jessica evolved into something different, but as to what those plans are, well, you'll have to wait and see : )

But Jessica's disappearance would also serve as motivation for Gina as well as a way of setting her and Shelly at odds with each other, which leads to the end of this book, but alas, I'm getting ahead of myself. 

Eva, based on Vida Guerra, also seemed to cement her place as a fan favorite in this story. Originally Felicia and Janet weren't supposed to do much in this story beyond be background characters, but then I came up with the shower scene idea as a way of spicing up one of the chapters because I didn't think there was much in the way of sexy stuff happening, plus I figured that readers would be curious as to what was happening with them. The shower scene where Eva bathes her captives became another fan favorite, with one loyal reader messaging me the day this chapter came out to tell me he thought it was the best thing I had written at the time. 

Of course Eva figures in another fan favorite scene, the van scene. I had long wanted to do a scene where the female characters go undercover at a crooked casino as showgirls but get caught and bound and gagged, and I finally got to do it with this story. Once I decided that the character of Eva loved bondage, I came up with the idea that she gets turned on being bound and gagged next to Gina and decides to feel up the other woman. It was one of my favorite scenes to write in this, and is another fan favorite moment, and was brought to live by the always excellent Fifty Shades of Gag.

As for the other scene, with Caitlyn in the evidence locker, that came about because I realized that every character had their moment except for her. I have a big thing for Celeste Bonin and knew that I wanted to put in a character based off her, but once I did I realized that I only had one scene in mind for her, which was the end scene (more later). In fact, at one point I considered writing out Caitlyn in later stories because I had no idea what to do with her. 

I had always wanted to do a scene inspired by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode "Plan 6 From Outer Space" where April is captured, bound and gagged, and forced into a locker by Rocksteady and Bebop. Originally I wanted to do this scene with Black Scorpion, where she is caught and forced to show some villains to the evidence lock-up and they bind and gag her and shove her into a locker while making their getaway, hell I may still do it. So I decided to do a variation on this scene with Caitlyn, which would give her a moment, let readers get to know her, and we get to spend more time with Felicia and Janet too.

Then we get to the final scene, where Gina, Caitlyn, and Eva are captured by Tanya, Shelly, and Lisa, bound and gagged on horses, and paraded through town. I got this idea after reading the fourth Dark Tower book by Stephen King, in which Roland and some of his fellow gunslingers fall into a trap, have their hands bound by enemies, and are lead through town on horses. At this point I knew that I wanted to have characters based on Celeste Bonin, Vida Guerra, and Gia Macool, and thought it would be sexy if they were lured into a trap by saying they were going to do a bikini shoot, and they went out into the middle of nowhere in little bikinis only to be bound and gagged. I like the idea of being lead through town on horses as an added humiliation. 

When I was first planning out this trilogy, I knew I had ideas for the characters of Shelly and Tanya, but this is where they really came to light. I realized that it would be their characters setting the trap for Gina and company, who would then be imprisoned next to Felicia and Janet. My original idea would be that Gina and Felicia would have to work together to escape in the third volume, and thus would learn to trust each other. Meanwhile, Shelly and Tanya would be having their own adventures, not knowing that their prisoners were escaping, but more on that next month. For this though, since I knew that Shelly and Tanya would be working together in the next story, I wanted to set up their uneasy alliance. Obviously Gina is much more of a threat to Shelly than Felicia, so Shelly manipulates her former rival Tanya into helping her but also enacts her plan to take over the police department.

Though I wanted Gina to learn her lesson in this story, she also had to be punished in the same way Felicia was punished, so her suffering the same fate as Felicia felt like a good ironic ending for her in this story, though things were going to get much more interesting for our damsels in the next story...