professorspork - Tumblr blog

professorspork · 4 hours ago

Note

I hope this doesn't come off as an invasive question, I'm just curious how you came up with which fetishes to depict in each chapter of SDAU.

not invasive at all, if only insofar as the short answer is of course a) because i thought it was in-character and b) if I didn't at least find it at least nominally appealing myself i wouldn't have had any interest in writing it now would i so that's a bit of a tell

but short answers are no fun, of course, so let's break it down shall we?

Chapter 1: Thursday

This chapter was always intended to go hot and heavy, both as a genuine Watsonian introduction to Blake's world and as a sort of Doylist vibe-check for readers of "if you can't stomach this you're probably not going to enjoy the rest of this story, you can click the back button no harm no foul." but it's interesting to me that you specified fetishes rather than sex acts, because generally speaking that was a lot clearer to me in the conception of each scene. i knew what i was *going* for, even if I didn't always know from the outset how I would get there. so!

in this instance, I knew the vibe I wanted to nail (har har) was the degradation and humiliation aspect of Sun's kink. partially because I think that that's what canon Blacksun would have to be like-- if Sun didn't get something out of Blake being a dismissive and controlling sardonic shit to him they would never have stayed friends, jfc look at how she TALKS to him (and slaps him, twice!!!)-- but also because I really wanted to explore what that would be like for Blake, who doesn't *share* the kink (and in fact has some trauma around it) but still earnestly desires to indulge it, and gets something out of Sun's satisfaction in it.

I know I can write some Dora-the-Explorer-ass "seatbelts everyone!" sex scenes, but my goal is always verisimilitude that encompasses that-- never to break immersion. (I also find the sort of call-and-response ritual of verbal consent to be deeply erotic when actually portrayed like the act of intimacy it is rather than a chore or a checklist, so there's that.) i think i probably went a little more overboard than i had to in terms of in-prose justifications of the spicier moments, adding mental "because she knows he likes it so much" or "as they'd responsibly negotiated previously" caveats instead of letting things ride, but I also think that I got away with it because this Blake, like all Blakes, is deeply anxious and would feasibly have those self-soothing measures on the brain.

this (and what comes later in Dungeon Master) was also my avenue to explore just how "into character" Blake could get, because she goes full Domme performance here in a way she doesn't-- and in fact can't, constitutionally-- with Yang later on. she'll tease Yang, and isn't shy about being direct or even forceful, but I think she's hypersensitive to sounding *critical*-- due to a combination of a) her cognizance of her own responsibility as a sex partner of a trans woman generally and b) what being in love does to her and makes her feel specifically.

less under the umbrella of "fetish" and more in terms of erotica writ large and the broader goals of the fic, it was also very important to me to write a sex scene featuring (and glorifying in) bottom growth because THERE SHOULD BE MORE OF THEM OUT THERE.

Interstice: Sun

I saw an opportunity to put Blake in cat ears and I took it.

Chapter 2: Dungeon Master

listen, it is not my fault that Emerald Sustrai very obviously has a mommy kink situation that can be seen from space. that is in some ways the MOST obvious example of "I'm just depicting the character as I honestly see them, no agenda" in the whole fic. (well. tied for first place with Yang and the gag, but more on that later.)

the wax play with Russel was just a kind of scene I'd never written before that I thought would be fun and hot (lololol literally), and the come-on scene with Neon and Flynt was always intended to be more about Blake's social standing, experience, and inherent comfort at the club rather than the actual kinks involved.

Emerald, on the other hand, was supposed to be about the sort of... I'm not quite sure how to put it. the perils of unrestrained Id? a cautionary tale? Emerald *doesn't know herself,* that's part of her whole off-screen journey that gets paid off in in the end. she just knows that she Wants, but not what she wants, which makes the fact that she can only get what she wants by asking for it an immense frustration to her. she HATES that. so she tries to skirt by entirely on innuendo and provocation to force other people to make the decisions for her so she can just take whatever is given and deal with it, for good or ill.

and for Blake, that's a nightmare situation because she's basically used a sex club instead of therapy for the last several years of her life precisely because it's SUPPOSED to have these guardrails and people are supposed to know what they're looking for so nothing can cross lines. emerald basically shows her that that's a convenient lie she's been telling herself (one of many). emerald simultaneously shows Blake just how far she's come from where she's started-- which is quite far!!-- but also shows her she's gotten as much out of this particular coping strategy as she's ever gonna get. if Blake wants to grow more or get healthier, she cannot just keep doing what she's been doing. it's been clear to her friends for a while, but this is the moment it becomes clear to her. and if it hadn't already been, she could never have actually accepted it when Neptune says it at the end of this chapter.

Chapter 3: Beacon

no fetishes here. really the headline here is what i very much did NOT want to come off as a fetish, which is the way Blake becomes more attracted to Yang after she clocks her.

threading that needle and exploring that line-- the difference between "you are even more beautiful to me now because I see who you are and the fortitude it took to become that person, and the things I already found attractive before stand out even more to me now, and also Trans Women Are Hot We Don't Have To Make A Thing Of It" versus, like... getting weirdly prescriptive and flirting with straight-up physiognomy and ABSOLUTELY making a thing of it is not always an easy one to strike! honestly bless @alexkablob for being so patient with me because i had her read minutely different versions of that moment over and over and over again so the scene came across the way i intended it to: not being cutesy, not trying to obscure the fact that Blake is attracted to Yang BECAUSE she's trans, rather than in spite of or ignoring it.

i think-- or at least, i'd like to think-- that more cis writers want to be braver about writing trans-inclusive romance but don't for fear of sounding chaser-y. and this scene was always About That, in every way it's possible to be about that, for Blake AND for me

Chapter 4: Dirty Laundry

the fetishes depicted here-- electroplay and vampire roleplay-- don't have any significance unto themselves but instead are meant to be wider examples of Blake's true kink, which is indulging the kinks of others. Blake is GAME, not because she thinks she has to be or because it's an expectation Adam put on her, but because she's down for a challenge and likes to be the reason people get off.

Blake's just, embarrassingly, really into improv. that yes-and instinct gets her into weird sexy situations at the club, and also makes her very fun to play DND with.

Chapter 5: Proper Socialization

this is where we first start to see the signs of Blake's next self-inflicted mental health crisis, which is "i am somehow diminishing Yang by having sexy thoughts about her being submissive because obviously she'd never agree to that" blake. BLAKE what are yoU TALKING ABOUT

YOU COULD TRY. ASKING.

like Blake knows damn well that it's not degrading or insulting to sub, and a lot of this is just her being embarrassed about having lustful thoughts about Yang at all, but there IS that edge there of "if she knew that's how i see the world she'd never forgive me" that is... the self-obsession and fretting is in some ways a fetish, if that makes sense? like Blake's so far down the rabbit hole on this it's a fetish in the most clinical way, it's a fixation.

Prelude (1): Adam | Prelude (2) Adam Blake

... and once I got that far, it was obviously the right time in the story for me to dig the origin of that thought out at the root

this chapter is in many ways the other side of the coin from Thursday. just as it was important to me to show Blake owning her identity as a Domme with Sun, it was equally important for me to show her owning her identity as a sub with Adam. not as his victim, but as her own person. there was never a chance of this relationship being healthy because Adam's a manipulative groomer shitstain, but Blake *could* have had *a* healthy relationship as the submissive partner and truly enjoyed it, if she'd found a worthier person to crush on. that ability to trust and let go-- to surrender-- to submit, in the most basic meaning of the word-- is not something Adam forced upon her, but rather something he took from her. it was hers, and he ruined it.

I've also talked about this a lot in the author's notes and elsewhere, but it was also important to me to show that Blake chose this and wanted him. I think diminishing her agency in the development of their romance is a misread of the character that does a disservice to who she is and what she's overcome. what she has to accept here is not that she missed the signs, but that she SAW the signs and WELCOMED them. his being dangerous, edgy, and forbidden was a major part of the thrill and appeal to her; she'd gotten off on that. which: that's also a reason i could only ever explore this in an AU and not canon, because it's very different to put that on a precocious but ultimately consenting college student than a twelve-year-old but we don't have time to unpack all that

and... maybe it's very obvious to say it, but the other fetish that comes up here (and did previously in Sun's interlude) is just like Blake's fundamental awakening to the possibilities of polyamory and ethical non-monogamy. which isn't a fetish in and of itself, but is the mechanism by which every other fetish gets explored. it's a permission structure that lets Blake live her life in a way that feels natural to her without shame-- or would, if Blake were capable of not feeling shame lmao-- and that's the engine that makes everything else in this fic go.

Chapter 6: Four Questions

No real fetishes present other than Blake's fixation on Yang's bruise, which: see what I said about Proper Socialization.

Chapter 7: Body & Recovery

see above, again, more and harder (heyo). this is the first time Yang literally TELLS Blake "I like when you get toppy and particular" and Blake like... believes her but also decides this can somehow only apply to the most vanilla of instances and couldn't possibly translate into a larger dynamic because that would be Deciding For Yang somehow

also, dry humping is hot. the simulacrum of control vs the obvious and overt loss of control, the way it has an innocence to it despite being (literally, in terms of necessary cleanup) filthy... fun times. we see this come up again several times, the "I like getting messy," and that's just a thing I have about sex scenes generally that I think is deeply important. you have to want the bodily fluids around or why are we doing this.

Chapter 8: Balance

There was no way I was gonna get though a fic like this without a breathplay scene. there couldn't BE a more on-the-nose depiction of Blake's need for control-- but also, to her credit, the way she's thoughtful and responsible with the power she's given. it's a way of showing how her pathological mistrust of herself is unearned. like, people literally put their lives in her hands and homegirl doesn't even notice.

(see also, related: Blake promising Yang "I love when you say no to me" and meaning it like GIRL JUST LISTEN TO YOURSELF)

and going back to the polyamory point, it was important to me structurally to show Blake continuing to have encounters at Anesidora, and to tease out how they don't bother her or seem like cheating to her until she, as she always does, creates a mind prison about it.

Chapter 9: Power

well this one's a fun one for fetishes, eh?

this chapter is the first hint at Blake's fantasies regarding Yang's mirror, which will come up a LOT from here on out. I could (and honestly probably should) write a whole other essay about what I did with mirrors in this fic, and what their presence throughout signifies, but in terms of kink and fantasy I imagine it's pretty damn clear even here at jump: she sees Yang for exactly the woman she is and wants Yang to see it, too.

then we've got the juxtaposition of Yang In Panties and the rimming scene, and like... I don't think I'm being subtle here, you know? Yang is deeply vulnerable about her relationship with her own femininity, her desirability, her acceptability on like a basic level, and Blake... wants to devour her. Blake sees all of it, loves all of it, wants all of it. the things Yang sees as potential dealbreakers because they're shameful or subpar or ~gross, Blake just sees a goddamn sexy dreamboat. which Yang, like a hero, actually REALIZES at the end, while Blake then spirals out like a moron

this is another one where this is also just an act I don't see very often and had never attempted myself, and both were worth remedying.

Chapter 10: The Ropes

and-- see title-- the complete lack of subtlety continues.

Yang literally says this in her POV section in the next chapter, but the collar and leash was also a very deliberate and very linear, obvious choice. Yang WANTS to be bound to Blake, wants to be kept close and to have physical, tangible proof of their intimacy, and she picks the objects that tell Blake so. Collaring scenes are also A Big Deal in D/s stories and putting my (/their) spin on it-- having Blake present it to Yang to do it to herself, to put that agency in her hands-- was important to me. Blake's terrified of taking too much, of being this greedy conqueror, and Yang's trying so hard to say "you can't take what's already yours."

and of course just when Blake finally hears and accepts it, she misses that she's been so up her own ass about HER shit she hasn't at all been paying attention to the rest of Yang's or she'd have picked up the prior signs Yang dropped re: the ways her abandonment issues do and don't manifest

which brings me to the other major thing here, which is Yang's flirtation with cucking and depersonalization fetish and her own relationship to polyamory. Yang does genuinely find the idea of Blake with other people hot. and you can chalk that up to her always sublimating her needs to others, or you could see it as something she inherited FROM her parents rather than developed due to her proximity to their bullshit, or any number of other interpretations. but the way Blake's reveal to Yang goes-- with Yang wanting to be walked through the process of Anesidora and being turned on by it in this slightly-removed proxy way-- was one of the earliest things in my outline for this story. yang is stressed out about it Happening To Her and having to Do It Right in a way she isn't when she can just enjoy the idea of it as a voyeur without having to Perform.

Insterstice: Yang

So. The gag.

I have been on the record for years about my belief in this being a kink Yang would have, and I think I was fairly explicit about it in the fic itself. Yang is desperate to have her Class Clown instinct suppressed. she has gone out of her way to make herself likeable so she will not be abandoned again, and being explicitly shown that she does not need to do or say anything and will still be adored is deeply healing for her. this is why a lot of dommy or toppy takes on Yang leave me cold-- not because of the caretaker aspect, which I think she'd excel in and enjoy, but because it feeds into exactly that same charismatic (yet inherently performative) part of her that like, beats up on Junior and the show is clear FROM THE VERY OPENING TEXT is not truly who she is. it's a front she puts up.

and the thing about the mirror, which gets its first big culmination here, is that there is NO front Yang can put up. all she is faced with is her own actual reality, and the inarguable truth of it. it also plays into the voyeur thing I was talking about before, where there's this sort of pleasure at the idea of seeing Blake work and getting to see it on HERSELF, where she is simultaneously some other girl but also cannot escape the fact of "that girl is me." does that make sense? it's like the two circles finally converge into a venn diagram and then align.

Chapter 11: Play

This being its own chapter didn't exist in my original outlines. it was only when i got to this moment as I was writing linearly that I realized the audience both needed and deserved a chance to bask in the new normal before i started wrapping things up

actually rewarding everything I'd set up in terms of how they would approach Anesidora *together* seemed the obvious thing, and then going a few steps further to take it to the shibari and chastity cage place, well

*polite cough*

i have it on some authority that there is a hunger for that among my target audience

but seriously, it's all just more of what i've said. yang's desires revolve around being tethered and contained because she's had a lifetime of being gregarious and on her own. but she's also intrepid and COMPETITIVE, so blake making up rules she can WIN at stokes that fire in her to explore the unknown and also make it her bitch

and blake sees all of that, and wants desperately to indulge it

Chapter 12: Home

not really sure if the shower scene here rises to "fetish" level but to touch on it briefly

--or NOT touch, as is sort of what happens here--

i... hmm. i think in a way this is sort of my thesis statement about where blake's coming from with domination. which isn't touching, or being serviced, but is literally just talking Yang off and guiding her to her own pleasure.

Blake wants to be RESPONSIBLE for that, likes knowing she's a force for good, and the control she exerts is about learning to trust herself just as much as it is thriving at the evidence that her partners trust HER

blake obviously enjoys sex tremendously, but that's not what makes it erotic for her. her own pleasure is really the smallest part of it....

Epilogue: Surrender

... which sort of brings us full circle, to Blake's inevitable realization that her pleasure DOES matter and her desires CAN be identified and sated. even despite all she's been through; even if those desires don't seem coherent or consistent to her

the what of this, the improvised rock climbing bondage, was the very last thing to come together for this story. i knew i wanted Blake to experience full body restraint in an unconventional way, but I didn't have a solid plan on how to achieve it. which, because you asked about the fetish and not the act, I suppose is really entirely incidental

and like, as far as How I Chose To Decide Blake Wants To Be Tied Up, that did not feel like a choice at all. the excessive ribbon wrapping up the arms of her beacon-era outfit made that call for me. gambol shroud's existence AT ALL made that decision for me. Blake getting captured by Yuma and Trifa, Blake getting caught in the vines in the Ever After... you'll have to ask CRWBY about this one, not me, because that's just literally lifted wholesale from the show as Blake's obvious and inevitable Thing lmao

... and apparently this post is 3.5k so you know what i'm gonna cut it off there

THANK YOU FOR ASKING THIS WAS FUN

#sdau #blake and yang #rwby #fic what i wrote

12 notes · View notes