Dispatches from Stepford

A lot of these are scrappy and unfinished but yknow what? As long as I have the basic concept down I honestly don’t fucking care anymore lmao

  I don’t remember when I first drew these up but it was somewhere around 2024 after I’d finished writing Welcome to Stepford. The story itself isn’t set in the 70’s, I’m aware, but I really wanted to lean into the aspect of the shitty archaic legacy of the Men’s Association turning free-willed women into submissive housewives for over 50 years, whether it’s through the kill-and-replace method from the original or my half-baked brainwashing bullshit :) I was kind of going for a more gaudy and tacky vintage vibe, like imagine wall-to-wall carpeted bathrooms, mustard-yellow kitchens, “(You’re) Having My Baby” by Paul Anka, bad toupees, mass-produced easy listening compilations, old Sears catalogues. cheesy game shows, The Dating Game, etc.

Maybe Kim Eberhart’s B&B would be named Ingalls something? After her mom’s maiden name. Every few months or so I keep loading up WriterSolo to revise the script, but I feel like I did the last major one and I’m happy to just leave it where it is. Another thing I’m not totally happy with is the stage names for two of Rachel’s bandmates, Mel and Cat. I think Cindy Chaos would sound better for Cat, but none of these characters are referred to with their stage names anywhere in the script which I’ll admit is pretty dumb of me!!! So just pretend I did all that.

>inb4 don’t push yer luck kid I mean ideally the cast would mostly consist of actors from the Northeastern US to give it a little air of authenticity and maybe save on dialect coaches etc, but if this ever turned into a real thing I would probably have to make a few compromises. And I’d be fine with that if the actors were good enough!! As long as they stay close enough to my character concepts, I’m not looking to turn anyone white Kim Eberhart: Mary Stuart Masterson duh this is the most definite thing, it’s literally the same role she played in the original when she was like 7 lmao William Everett: I’m genuinely having trouble pinning him down lmao the dude has to be tall obviously, good at playing a complete bastard, not look too much like Matt Walsh to risk a lawsuit Helen Van Sant/Olivia Murray: dunno man I did have Lea myren from the ugly stepsister in mind at first but then I gave her lines. the gal from portrait of god maybe? Martha Huntington/Jasmine Wells: jayme Lawson!!!...

Added flashback sequence detailing last Disaffectress show and subsequent abduction of Rachel Martinez additional dialogue, shedding light on the argument Zach and Cece had before Cece’s disappearance, etc. officially gave Arthur’s workplace the name ‘Sunbean Café’ already forgor what else FULL DISCLOSURE: I still can’t think of a name for Kim Eberhart’s B&B!!!

In August of 2019, the Brooklyn-based punk band Disaffectress were halfway through a tour of the East Coast when guitarist Roxxi Riot was kidnapped from the band’s touring van after a show in Connecticut. She spent five years in a nearby town called Stepford, living under the coercive control of a man who had reconditioned her into a submissive housewife, her mind separated from her body until her eventual bloody escape in October 2024. With her two sons born during her captivity in tow, Roxxi immediately reunited with her bandmates and threw herself into channeling her trauma through music, the result of which was the single Stepford Wife, the first musical release from Disaffectress in five years. But she was far from done telling her story, and neither was the rest of the band.

“And the whole time… All I could think about was you.” [TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNINGS: discussion of rape & fetishisation of Asian women] I’m literally on my phone posting this at goth night lmao This is a story about Annie Nguyen – who’s a full-blown goth by this point – and the goth gal she sees at the supermarket! I’ve decided her name is Erin, and maybe she’s very distantly related to somebody in the original Stepford Wives book, idk who specifically but I put Migliardi (as in the lady in the book who drops the bombshell that the MA is only a few years old) just as a placeholder y’know. And I know making every new character a relative of a pre-existing one is the dumbest legacy sequel cliché ever, especially in the case of Stephen Axhelm, but I imagine Stepford is a pretty small town anyway and some of the kids who grew up there would have followed in their fathers’ footsteps and joined the Men’s Association, under the impression that the life their parents led is one that they shou...

  Appearance notes: Takes the appearance of a white cis woman in her early 20s 5’7”, slim build Strawberry blonde hair and hazel eyes

Appearance notes: 30-year-old queer Latina cis woman 5’6”, skinny build Short black hair

  (Look I know locs aren’t usually layered like this but I really tried to make this look good and as accurate to how I pictured Arthur in my head as possible!!!) Appearance notes: 31-year-old Black gay cis man 5’8”, slim build (similar height to Zach) Black shoulder-length locs and brown eyes Arthur James Hendry is a lifelong resident of Stepford and the grandson of children’s book author Ruthanne Hendry, whose family was notably the first Black family to move to Stepford in 1975. His grandfather Royal was briefly a member of the Men’s Association, but quickly became disillusioned with their somewhat conditional acceptance of him and his family, and quickly left the group. As a result, the Men’s Association has since fostered a decades-long vendetta against the Hendry family, and often makes use of their connections within the Stepford PD to repeatedly harass and intimidate Arthur due to his race. Arthur works at a local coffee shop in the centre of Stepford where he meets Z...