i mean this so sincerely if you are a man in 2026 you should expect to be on thin fucking ice with the women in your life and if this confuses or enrages you then you are part of the reason why
if you aren't even aware that we are right now all of us living in an ongoing worldwide antifeminist backlash, that is not a oh-no-cute-oopsie kind of ignorance. that fully goes past "complicit" and enters "actively part of the problem" territory. it makes me contemptuous of you. it makes me not want to know you at all. i doubt i'm alone in that.
something i love about hdg is how affini centric the compact is and how that plays into hdg as a disability narrative. life as a non-affini sophont in the compact is full of reminders that eveything was made for them first you second; text is written in affini, you need help to sit on that bench, you can't just get a couch you need a teran couch. while the affini are absolutely willing to accommodate any need a xenosphont might have it's still an accommodation something you need to go out of your way to ask for or find. this mirrors the lived experience of disabled people we live in a world were everything was designed for abed people (one much less willing to accommodate us) and reminders of that can be near constant.
For the tumblr audience: out of character, what are the axioms, and why are they important?
FWD: Axiom Compliance in the HDG Setting
To: Clerk Sylvia Wicker, 6th Bloom, Office of Rituals and Records
From: EldritchAmy, Bureau of Extradiegetic Information
MESSAGE TEXT:
Hello! I'm @eldritchamy, one of the Lorets on the official HDG Community Server. The Bureau of Extradiegetic Information Asked me to send over this response.
Here's the TL;DR version:
HDG as a setting is based on an allegory of social disability, bodily autonomy, and agency. The noncon is the point, and exists in service to this allegory. But there is also wish fulfilment in the Affini as ideal Caregivers.
The entire founding principle of everything we do here is "what if the people responsible for your care actually meant it when they said they wanted what was best for you, and lived up to that promise."
The Axioms (and brief explanations thereof) are as follows:
The Affini are BENEVOLENT because that promise is sincere.
The Affini are INEVITABLE because you can't escape that promise.
The Affini are POST SCARCITY because they have unlimited power and resources to live up to that promise.
The Affini are IMPERIALIST because that promise will be given to everyone, whether they like it or not.
These are the four founding principles that all in-universe material must adhere to. For a much more comprehensive analysis of why we have these Axioms and how they work to uphold the core concept of what HDG is, see the much much longer explanation below the cut:
At its most fundamental level, HDG is an allegory for social disability. It began as a deeply personal work of science fiction smut by GlitchyRobo that asked the question, "What if the people responsible for your care always, unconditionally meant it when they said they wanted what was best for you?" and sought to answer that question through the lens of a story that kinks off the nature of agency and consent in a world where you will never be seen as able-bodied, or as capable or powerful or competent as those around you.
This allegory is the guiding principle for what HDG is. Everything we do with the setting is based on the core concept of the Affini as Ideal Caregivers. Even when they're doing crazy fucked up hot shit to you, (remember, it IS a kink setting) they're doing it for your own good.
Things in the original story like nonconsensual drugging, enforced bedtimes, having your personal hygiene managed for you, being forced to sign away your legal rights and personhood to someone with the power to up and change the rules on you however they please once your agency has been stripped away? Those are very real things that happen to very real people in Conservatorships, assisted living facilities, and psychiatric institutions.
Human Domesticaiton Guide, the story, sought to kink off the trauma of the real life version by imagining a world where it was done instead by giant hypnokink mommy domme plant aliens that want to treat you like a beloved pet.
Human Domestication Guide, the setting, when it was opened up for additional authors to play in, needed a set of guidelines that the world operated on. So as it grew into the collaborative, cooperative creative writing project that we know today, a set of founding principles were put together to outline the boundaries of what is and is not HDG.
These are the Axioms, which are as follows:
The Affini are Inevitable
The Affini are Benevolent
The Affini are Imperialist
The Affini are Post-Scarcity
Each of these axioms plays a role in informing the identity of the Affini and ensuring that any depiction of them aligns with their purpose as idealized caregivers.
The ULTIMATE wish fulfilment of HDG, beyond whatever horny bad-end science fiction kink we enjoy creating or consuming here, is that of someone who will love you and give you the highest quality of care you can possibly receive, for the entire duration of your life, without ever getting bored or tired or impatient, or failing in their duty to care for you, or abandoning you.
It is a world where the people who would slip through the cracks of the real world (especially poor, queer, disabled, autistic trans women) instead have a place where they are cared for by someone who means it.
The Affini Compact is not a normal scifi faction like The Borg or the Bene Geserit or the Jedi or the Necrons. The Affini Compact exists to be an allegory for an absolute promise of absolute care.
The Affini Are Inevitable because HDG imagines a world where that promise will ALWAYS be lived up to. You can't defeat the Affini because they're not fighting you. You can't escape from the Affini because there is no distance they will not cross for you. You can't hide from the Affini because there is no rock they won't overturn, no resource they won't expend in order to find you and live up to their promise. The promise of care is inescapable.
The Affini are Benevolent because HDG imagines a world where the one irrefutable truth, the one future you can never fight or run from or escape, the one absolute in this world, is a future where that promise of care is one hundred percent sincere. The Affini Compact is the promise that You Deserve Care, and You Will Be Given Care.
A cat will scream and hiss in its carry crate because it doesn't want to go to the vet to get its shots, because the cat is not a person, and it cannot understand that what you're doing to it is for its own good. Similarly, a feralist may not understand what the Affini are doing to them, but it is ALWAYS for their own good. The Affini ALWAYS mean it when they say they want what's best for you.
The Affini Are Imperialist because the Affini Compact is a de facto empire. They are expansionist conquerors who have spread out from their home in the Triangulum Galaxy, and Domesticated every sophont species they've found along the way, and will continue to do so. When it is necessary to do so, they will even usurp, overthrow, or erase aspects of the cultures they come across.
This is the easiest Axiom to misunderstand, because it sounds completely and utterly incompatible with Benevolence. But consider the subject of the most-explored era of the setting: the Domestication of the Terran Accord in the 2550s. The Terran Accord was a fascist, hypercapitalist, dystopian empire built on mass exploitation and subjugation through wage labor and other cruelties. What the Affini Compact did was completely dismantle the existing government, end capitalism and exploitation, and ensure the highest possible standard of living and quality of life for all in a world without labor, money, debt, etc.
Yes, the Affini Compact is an empire that can and will dismantle governments and cultures that are deemed harmful to the well-being of sophonts. They have done it to all of Triangulum and Andromeda, much of the Milky Way at the time of the Human Domestication Treaty, and they will continue to do it throughout the Local Group and beyond as they expand further out into the stars.
THEY DO THIS BECAUSE THEIR PROMISE OF CARE APPLIES TO EVERYONE.
No one is an exception. Everyone deserves care, and the Affini are the only species capable of providing that care at a standard the Affini themselves deem acceptable. Yes, they are Imperialist. Yes, they are still Benevolent. That is where the wish fulfilment comes in. HDG never claims to be realistic, nor is it a setting focused on highly detailed worldbuilding or plausible science or politics. The setting exists in service to the allegory it is based on. And that allegory is one where everyone is cared for by someone who means it. You will be given the highest possible quality of care, whether you like it or not.
The kink and the allegory are inseparable.
The noncon is the point.
The Affini Are Post-Scarcity because there is no end to the degree of care the Affini can and will provide. They have an unlimited potential to live up to their promise. The Compact will never get tired of you, or run out of money for you, or cut the research grants for some rare disease out of their budgets. They will never tell you your medication is out of stock or that you can't afford it. They will never run out of your comfort food. There will never be not enough hours in the day to provide the highest possible standard of care you can receive. The Affini are post scarcity because it allows them to live up to every other aspect of their promise. They are the ideal caregivers, and their ability to provide that care, to every single sophont everywhere, will never run out.
Everything we've built the Human Domestication Guide setting on comes back to its core identity as a collaborative writing project in a shared setting about social power and disability, and agency, and an absolute promise of absolute care.
The Axioms exist to define the core identity of that project for all who join our little game in the sandbox together, by setting a clear boundary for what is and isn't HDG. If you like our game, we're happy to share the sand with you. If you feel inspired by aspects of the setting, but don't like the rules of our game, then be inspired! Make up a new game of your own to enjoy!
But HDG is at its heart a setting with a deeply personal idea in mind, and we do ask people who want to play in our sandbox to be respectful of that idea.
After all, we may not be the Affini. But we all have the power to show a little care to each other.
something i love about hdg is how affini centric the compact is and how that plays into hdg as a disability narrative. life as a non-affini sophont in the compact is full of reminders that eveything was made for them first you second; text is written in affini, you need help to sit on that bench, you can't just get a couch you need a teran couch. while the affini are absolutely willing to accommodate any need a xenosphont might have it's still an accommodation something you need to go out of your way to ask for or find. this mirrors the lived experience of disabled people we live in a world were everything was designed for abed people (one much less willing to accommodate us) and reminders of that can be near constant.
i'm still using one from before the compact showed up, i never felt the need to get a new one. is that something i need to do? is there anything else i to change?
i keep see and getting recommended no god no masters and i'd probably love it but that is 3 full length novels. so i started reading wellness check instead which is only one novel
Gonna ramble here cuz I’m having an odd kind of night.
I won’t pretend to speak for anyone else, but one of the alluring parts of HDG, maybe the most alluring part, is somewhere out there in the big wide universe, there’s an Affini for you. This massive, towering, immortal alien that is out there for you, who loves you in ways that you might not fathom.
They love you enough to dedicate decades, if not a century of their time and efforts to keeping you safe, content, and fulfilled.
They love you enough to mark you, to place upon your neck a permanent reminder of that all encompassing love.
They’re waiting out there to take you into their vines, strip you of insecurity, worry and doubt, and pull forth the absolute best version of you, a version of you that will be happy for the rest of your existence.
You will be happy, you don’t have to worry about the how and the why anymore, it doesn’t matter, you are loved, and you will be happy.
i've been reading wellness check and god is it so good. like i'm not even into hypno stuff(or maybe i am this is the first hypno thing i've read) but i love every thing about it. i love seeing a tgirl being made to take care of herself and when she can't someone comes in and does it for her. i love being made so you physically can't self deprecate. i love the first person pov where she can't tell she's being made to do things but we can find out though context. i love wanting to submit but at the same time wanting to have fun not submitting.i really love the depiction of autism.
also i really want to tell the author how much i love their fic but i only just stated using ao3 and i am still waiting for my invite to make my account so if anyone knows if the author has like a tumblr or something where i can tell them i love their fic please tell me so i don't forget. and no spoilers please i only just finished ch 12 at time of writing.
i keep see and getting recommended no god no masters and i'd probably love it but that is 3 full length novels. so i started reading wellness check instead which is only one novel
i keep reading hdg tumblr in public and worrying that someone will see what i'm reading, but then i realize that half of these posts are entirely incomprehensible if you haven't read hgd. like normal people don't don't know what class-Ms are or what feralism is
