And then there's stealing. Theft. You wouldn't do it in real life--at least I hope you wouldn't--so why do it online? If you're a common checker of these blogs, you've probably heard of the shenanigans occurring with persons benefiting from the captions we love. And I'm not talking about the super-fun shenanigans nor the restaurant. I'm talking about beingandrissa, of whom I refuse to actually link. Now only does this person benefit from captions, it's captions she didn't even have the decency to write herself. This is why a few years ago I began incorporating my tag into my work, which evolved from just my name and maybe a descriptor, like shown above, into the Kaitlyn's Cap Fairy I use today.
So there's a couple of questions to ask. The first of which is: What constitutes as stealing in the caption world? To me, there are two answers. Let's begin with the obvious: photos. We don't own them, but furthermore, we don't pretend to. Although, there is one caption I made using my own photography, but that's another story. In any case, I think the majority of the TG Caption community agrees that the real art is in telling the story and the overall design of the caption.
So here's the second answer: we steal ideas. Sure, I come up with something original now and again, and am sure others do too. But I'm also of the opinion that everything is, to some level, a recreation of the old. That's why so often we see other captioner's interpretations of the same universe or story idea. Is this stealing? I don't think so. In fact, I know Morpheus is one creator who seems absolutely thrilled to see others try their spin on a Great Shift caption. Above is my first and I believe only attempt at another one of Morpheus' universes: Miss Chiff. It was quite the fun universe to play in, though I found it a bit tougher to caption. But I really liked Morpheus' stories. And as far as I'm concerned in the captioning world, this is the only mischief that should be going on.