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It’s the end of another month, and of course that means it’s time for me to look back over the stories that I posted last month and discuss what went into their creation. At this point, that means looking quite a ways back, honestly; my backlog is now over a year long (six months of which has gone to making sure that my Early Bird Patreons get a lot of bang for their two bucks a week) so I’m looking back at stuff I wrote about this time last year. But that doesn’t mean I have no insights to offer, so let’s get started, shall we?
Brain Freeze: This was one of those absurdly, almost guilt-inducingly simple ideas; I saw the title, I was like, “Oh, right, like ice cream except it literally freezes your brain,” and from there it was pretty much off to the races. Poppy seed ice cream became the flavor because there’s a long and time-honored association between poppies and soporific drugs, and the power outage provided the excuse for someone to scarf down a stranger’s homemade ice cream without asking too many questions about it. It still kind of feels almost too easy in retrospect.
4 U 2 B Free: When I initially started thinking of the 4U stories as more than a one-off gig, and I searched through song databases looking for songs with “4 U” in the title and arranging them into a rough semblance of an overarching narrative, I knew that this one would be about 4U and her Master trying to deprogram another service unit named 2B. I didn’t know how, or why, or what the outcome would be, but that was the kernel of the idea that the story grew around.
As I got closer to the point of actually writing it, some things gelled. When I was writing “I Would Die 4 U”, I realized that it made an excellent opportunity to introduce 2B without having to explain how 4U and her Master went out and captured a service unit and brought her back to the safehouse for deprogramming. I also remembered, from the original “I’m a Slave 4 U”, that 4U isn’t actually allowed to recall her own conversion. That provided a point of focus for this story, as 4U observes the brainwashing process and experiences her programming conflict, which in turn allowed me to reinforce that plot point for later. And by the time I was ready to sit down and type everything out, I also had gotten a much better idea of how the story was going to end… which, without giving too much away, meant that I knew exactly what needed to happen to 2B at the end of the story to get her into position for the final denouement (which is, at this point, about three stories away). It’s sometimes nice to have all those pieces slotted in – it makes the writing process more about the way you say things, and less about what you’re trying to say.
Keep Looking Where Your Eyes Are Looking Now: I’m pretty sure I wrote this one almost directly after I finished reading Wiseguy’s Mind Play book (the ‘erotic hypnosis manual’ Leah refers to in the story). The induction Leah uses in the story makes use of a lot of hypnosis techniques described therein, especially the “seven plus or minus two” technique (where the subject is directed to try to keep their attention focused on multiple things, until they find their conscious mind straining under the load at which point they’re guided into a trance state).
I also know that I was of the opinion that if I was writing a story that used very realistic hypnosis, in a set of circumstances that made fairly direct use of a guide to erotic hypnosis, that it would be important to model realistic consent practices… and yes, safer sex as well. I kind of felt like this should be one of those stories that pointed to ways you can use hypnosis outside of fantasy, since it made use of hypnosis in a non-fantastic way. I think it does pretty well, even if a few things (did Sam consent to triggers?) weren’t made explicit.
No Time for Boys: Writing the new Boys(tm) series is kind of fun, because it does give me an opportunity to visit some areas that the Girls stories haven’t gone to. Since the Girls are interested in helping humans actualize their potential instead of creating drones, there aren’t really any opportunities for ‘conversion’ stories like this. Especially not ones exactly like this – I have very few “lesbian turned straight” stories in my entire 400+ library, both because it’s a less interesting use of mind control (there’s already a lot of heteronormative voices at work in society, we don’t really need literal brainwashing on top of that) and because I don’t like joining the chorus of heteronormative voices in society. But there is an erotic charge to brainwashing someone into changing their orientation, and this felt like the perfect place to play with the concept in a way that felt “safe” (because nobody would mistake this outcome for something desirable, and so no one would see it as a “all lesbians need is a night with a good man” story).
That said, I should probably mention to anyone uncomfortable with homosexual erotica that I do still think that there’s a more powerful erotic charge in getting someone to overcome heternormative societal taboos, and if the Girls made a lot of women go gay for robots, you can probably guess what the Boys will do to guys. Since Simon clearly labels any MM content, there won’t be any surprises, and I make no apologies for any future stories that may involve men and male-identifying robots.
Easily Led: And speaking of tropes I don’t explore very often… I really have not done much with intelligence reduction play, and I’ve said in the past that it’s not a kink that interests me. I will admit, that’s changed a little over the past couple of years, primarily because I’ve seen it modeled in a much more respectful, kind, and loving way by some of the people in the community. When all you see on Tumblr is meme after meme calling women “useless” and “stupid” and only good for sex and housework, it’s really hard to see that as a kink I could enjoy with someone I love and care about. Humiliation is a hard limit for me, as a top or a bottom. But when I saw some people (and I’m not naming names here, no permissions were granted) performing intelligence reduction in a loving way and even praising their sub for doing such a good job of thinking less, I was able to reframe it better.
Which led to this story. I wanted a story where it’s clear that the top is immensely proud of the bottom for being so good at diminishing her ability to think and reason, and he’s very happy with her both for trying so hard to do smart things and for failing so badly. I’d still say that this is very obviously a story intended to be a fantasy, and not in any way shape or form a reality (the amount of handwaving you’d need to do to get to a point where this is realistic, plausible, and consensual is… not small) but I think it’s a fantasy that has some real affection behind it. I’ll take that.
And that’s the month of March taken care of – join me next week for another blog post, and next month for another Liner Notes!