What we have here is a failure to communicate.
From the perspective of Clerks and Lorets, we have generally worked to discourage fics dealing with the subject of affinification — that is, a non-affini sophont becoming, through whatever means may be relevant to the fic in question, an affini. We have not, as popular understanding would have it, banned the subject entirely, as we have with our very hardline rules about the inclusion of minors in HDG works. Again, writing affinification will not get you banned from the HDG Discord, and never would have.
But it's come to our attention that, from the perspective of a lot of folks in the community, we functionally have banned affinification. This has led to a lot of ill feeling and tension that, in the absence of this newfound clarity, resulted in a lot of confusion and unhappiness on both sides. It goes without saying that we don't want that.
To be clear, we have historically discouraged affinification for several reasons, which I'll go into in depth below. We still do discourage it, not because we think it's inherently bad but because it's really really hard to write, a literary minefield where one wrong step can blow up not just your fic, but a lot of others. We discourage it not just to spare you the heartache of writing yourself into a corner, but to help uphold the overall themes of HDG as a setting. Let's talk about what that means, and why we originally took and still hold that position.
Before we start, we need to define the term "affinification" itself.
- affinification (n.):
- the process by which a non-affini sophont is physically transformed into an affini.
Right? Well, no, it's not just that simple. If this were the case — if all it took to become an Affini was to replace one's body and mind with phytotech — then every case of Aster-style ship-of-Theseus digitization would technically be a case of affinification as well. Hot plant mommy TF is certainly part and parcel of the affinification experience, and I think a big part of the draw, but we're just getting started.
- affinification (n.):
- the process by which a non-affini sophont is physically transformed into an affini.
- being recognized as an affini by other affini.
It's one thing to look like an affini, but it's quite another to be understood to be one. This is a point of contention, in fact, in several affinification stories! Where is the line drawn between affini and xenosophont? What does it mean to cross that line? Is that even allowed? This, too, is part of the draw; it's free dramatic tension. But here's the thing — it's not just a social recognition. With "being recognized as an affini" comes two very important markers of structural power. These are big enough and important enough that we really should mark and discuss them separately.
- affinification (n.):
- the process by which a non-affini sophont is physically transformed into an affini.
- being recognized as an affini by other affini.
- being taken seriously as a peer and gaining sufficient political and social standing to be respected as a decision maker, an authority, or someone who can take on serious responsibility.
Being Affini is more than just being hot plant mommy — it's about being part of a culture-wide Great Work, one that consumes not just lifetimes but eternity itself. The Affini made themselves immortal not for its own sake but because it was a necessary stepping stone. To be an Affini is to play a role in this Great Work, and to spend your entire immortal life doing so in one way or another. Whether that takes the form, in the immediate sense, of building a supermassive black hole jumpgate in a new galaxy or spending a century or two making one specific sophont's life absolutely perfect, it's all part of the plan.
Speaking of which:
- affinification (n.):
- the process by which a non-affini sophont is physically transformed into an affini.
- being recognized as an affini by other affini.
- being taken seriously as a peer and gaining sufficient political and social standing to be respected as a decision maker, an authority, or someone who can take on serious responsibility.
- being allowed to take a floret.
Now we're into the really thorny issue, both narratively and metatextually. Florets are central to the Compact's existence, and one could argue that the Compact functionally exists to ensure that florets specifically are taken care of. They are the primary resource extracted by the ever-expanding empire that is the Compact (oh, yes, we'll discuss this more in just a moment!) and they're the primary focus of the stories we're all writing, because, well, it's Human Domestication Guide. It's stories about humans being domesticated. Florets are the single most important thing, both to us as writers and readers and to the Compact itself, and you don't let someone you aren't absolutely certain knows what they're doing take care of the most important thing you have.
So, possessed of a full definition of affinification, let's take stock of where we stand. It's not just to become an affini, but to become Affini, culturally as well as physically. Stories may (and, again, frequently do) make great tension and drama of the difficulty in crossing one or all of these boundaries we've outlined, but we need to be very aware that, in attempting to cross one of these, even the most prosaic (namely, hot plant mommy TF), one is functionally attempting, or at least threatening, to cross all of them.
This poses a problem for the Compact.
The Affini are imperialist. It's right there in the Axioms, so it's not like we should act surprised by it. The Compact is a constantly-growing machine, built to expand and fold other cultures into itself, regardless of whether those cultures want to be folded into it. The Compact is a machine for turning stressed-out sophonts into cute pets, again whether they want it or not. Consent is not a concern — at best, it's a bonus.
This is not a bug. It is a feature.
The Affini are not imperialist by accident. They are not carelessly condescending — they care about it quite a lot. They have, unilaterally, chosen to put themselves in charge. Because they're post-scarcity, their empire may not exactly resemble the empires we here on Earth define the term by, but they are very much an empire, right down to the extraction of value from colonial territory. It just so happens that the value they're concerned with is cute sophonts rather than mineral wealth.
Now, let's examine affinification from this textual perspective, and specifically from the Affini perspective. The Compact rolls into town and takes over. They snatch up all the cute little florets-to-be and start building infrastructure to make more, and to care for all the little potential florets that might not, through no fault of their own, end up florets themselves. Then, after all that, one of those little potential florets comes along and says "Actually, I want a floret." Needless to say, this leaves the average Affini very confused, because they are not culturally trained for this possibility to even exist — potential florets don't take florets! That's not how it works! Why not? Well, that's just the way it is! From this perspective, a xenosophont trying to do affini things is a lot like that meme of a cat in a suit reading a newspaper and thinking about buying a boat. It's silly, you laugh about it because that's not what cats do. It's funny because it thinks it's people.
Sometimes, it even goes beyond "oh, isn't that darling?" Sometimes, from the Affini perspective, it becomes an issue of sophont safety. By Affini standards, a xenosophont that wants to assume the mantle of responsibility that affini are assumed to carry (and which they have unilaterally assigned themselves) is a bit like a six-year-old insist that they should be allowed to drive the family car because they can see over the steering wheel. This infantilization angle will come back up later, so keep it in mind.
Again, this is not a bug. This is a feature. We think it's hot and we're kinking off of it.
In this way, domestication of florets (and the attendant social responsibilities and rights thereto) become a sort of closed practice. You're just not part of the in-group. Even if you manage the uphill battle of being taken seriously despite being so adorable, you run into other issues — what do you mean you haven't taken all seventeen Humans Are Adorable!! courses?! You can't even perform an emergency tracheotomy with your bare vines? What if your floret chokes on their food with their absurd combination airway and gullet?! You don't even have vines!
You begin to see the issue — it's not so much that the Affini are opposed to affinification, but more that the concept of it doesn't even occur to them independently, and when suggested simply doesn't parse, any more than things like the divine rights of kings don't parse to us. Actually understanding that worldview, in a way we could accept it in our own lives, is simply outside of our experience, outside of our ability to really internalize as a legitimate concept, and to most of us it seems like a really fucking bad idea.
(Imperialism is bad. I should not have to say this, but we do not live in a perfect world. We, the Clerks and Lorets and all of us who have contributed to the Human Domestication Guide's ever-expanding library of works, do not endorse or support imperialism in real life. I cannot emphasize enough that we just think it's hot and we're kinking off of it. Don't overthink this.)
There is more to analyzing affinification than the merely textual explanation of why it's a bad idea, however. Let's move to the metatextual level. Let's tell stories about stories.
Human Domestication Guide is a disability narrative. This isn't just me, Kana, the woman writing this blog post, pulling something out of nowhere — GlitchyRobo will happily tell you this herself. The original story, the one this whole marvelous setting and community is built atop, is about asking this question: what if all the uncaring authority figures who act out of what they claim are your own best interests actually cared? What if they not only did have your best interests at heart, but had the means and will to follow through on it, to make sure no one slips through the cracks, and that everyone is cared for?
Let's take a simple example: stories are fond of showcasing the Affini building public infrastructure that's sized for them rather than for the significantly smaller humans around them. Textually, this is about Affini condescension, normalizing dependency, and so on. Metatextually, however, this is a fantasy of everyone, not just disabled folks, needing help to do basic everything things.
A lot of what comes across as weirdly passive-aggressive behavior by the Affini, the way they condescend, the way they touch uninvited, the way they invite themselves into the lives of others — is part of this narrative. Disabled folks are commonly infantilized by others — in professional settings like medical care, interpersonal settings, governmental & political settings, etc — so once the Affini show up and start running things according to their own internal sense of ethics and morality everyone gets the same treatment.
Once you see it through this lens, it's pretty hard to unsee. Take a minute, and get your head around it.
The reason the Affini are the way they are is because, through the world they create in the fiction, they allow us as writers and readers to figuratively inhabit a world where we're not marked as a class by our disabilities, because the Affini place us all in the same class by comparison. Even if we're not writing about this specifically, we're writing about it because it's part of the themes baked directly into the setting, the themes that set the Affini inextricably above all other life in the universe.
See where I'm going?
The problem with affinification from this perspective is that it can very, very easily upend that disability narrative. Functionally, it's kind of like saying, "Hmm, that's a good idea, why didn't I think of that?" to someone asking "Have you tried not being disabled?" Now, this is far from the only theme Human Domestication Guide has as a setting, especially now with so many stories having built upon the original, but it's such a key part of the setting's DNA that extreme care should be taken whenever you're writing something that might affect it — and affinification does.
Not every affinification story runs headlong into this, of course; for example, there's a reason that Tam in Sui Generis goes through years of what is, functionally, extremely grueling physical therapy and repeated surgical interventions. Did you notice the Sixth Toe prosthetic she needed to move around in Earth gravity because she's from Mars? Did you notice how long it took her to stop using it? How long it took her to learn to walk again once she had vines that could do the job instead?
But there's another metatextual narrative we need to examine, isn't there? Let's not mince words: a good chunk of the HDG community is some flavor of transgender. I don't think I need to explain how powerful a feeling affinification might provoke for those of us who don't or didn't feel comfortable in our own skin. As a metaphor, it's pretty obvious — shed that skin. Shed the muscle and bone, too. Leave everything you were behind and embrace plampt. Gain power you didn't have before. Be free in a way you never were.
Well. Yeah. I'm not gonna try to deny that. It's really, really obvious. There's no argument against it. Affinification is an incredibly obvious metaphor for transition. Any act of transformation is. It's not an accident that TF porn is incredibly popular among a certain variety of extremely online trans folks.
That's what makes talking about affinification, and about discouraging it, such a sticky problem, because when we do, it's really easy to have this particular narrative of affinification — the trans narrative — in mind, and to read what we say as bioessentialism. It's hard to fault that reaction, because we do live in a world where we get that kind of shit thrown in our face constantly, and the last thing we want to do is to reproduce it ourselves, especially in a community where transness is so heavily represented and celebrated.
This blog post in a first step in ensuring that, going forward, we're all on the same page. Trust us — we see you. By and large, we are you.
So, you see the problem, and we've acknowledged the problem with the problem. Where does this leave us?
We're not going to tell you not to write affinification. If your heart is truly set on it, and you have an idea that's screaming to get out of you and onto the page, by all means, write it. That's how Sui Generis happened — out of the same discussion that spawned Affini Domestication Guide, I had my own little idea, and I sat on it for about six months carefully refining it, writing key scenes, rewriting them, shopping them around to beta readers (something I very, very rarely do), and generally working as hard as I could to ensure that, even if I was writing something non-canon, I was doing it in a way that respected canon as much as possible.
Of course, the community is in a very different place now than it was then. We don't really have a canon anymore — maintaining it in a community this size is functionally impossible. Instead, we have foundational stories, the Axioms and Rules, and Lorets to help answer questions and guide writers when there's ambiguities or uncertainties. And you'll note that there's nothing in the Axioms or Rules about affinification. President Goku can demand that affinification be legalized (dude!!), but joke's on him: it's already legal. You can go and write an affinification fic right now.
You probably shouldn't, mind.
Affinification is still a complicated subject, not quite taboo but very difficult, and one likely to lead you to places you might not have considered when you began writing it. Beyond that, we discourage affinification because the more it proliferates, the more it indirectly eats away at some of the foundational pillars of HDG. If you're going to write an affinification fic, we implore you to do so safely and with the greatest of consideration.
To that end, we offer the following guidelines. These aren't hard and fast rules, but neither are they mere suggestions. They're things that you should always be keeping in mind while writing affinification, and you should only deviate with them with extreme care and in consultation with Lorets. (Please, ask us, we're here to help!)
Don't normalize affinification. What we mean by this is that there shouldn't be precedent, or interconnection between cases, or anything that might demonstrate that the Compact is in the habit of regularly making affini out of xenosophonts. There is a reason Sui Generis has the name it does; try googling it.
Keep the Affini in charge. Think about Affini Domestication Guide. Think about Sui Generis. What do those stories have in common? Among other things, even if the affinified terran is ultimately allowed to take a floret, there's another affini in the picture. Kind of casts those stories in a slightly different light, doesn't it? In the same way, and especially if there's florets involved, an affinified xenosophont should probably not be given totally unsupervised rights to own a floret. This is a very blurry guideline, and there's lots of ways to have fun with it, but please do respect it. Florets are important!
This ain't easy. Affinification is a radical procedure, whether it's caused by surgical intervention and massive phytotech augmentation or some kind of bizarre jump drive accident fusing an affini with a terran. There are always consequences, and they are not to be taken lightly.
Affinification is part of a broader discussion — what is HDG? This is a discussion that any creative community has, and while HDG is run a little differently than a lot of fandom communities (in that we have Axioms and other guidelines and requirements for stories to adhere to, out of respect for the work of previous writers who helped build the setting), ultimately we're still responsive to one another, and to the organic growth we've seen over time.
But we also want to keep us us. We want to stay the kind of place we started out as, in nature if not in scope or form. HDG was never meant to have mass appeal, and many of us are actively disinterested in that kind of attention. When we change (and we do change, and will continue to change), we want it to be for the right reasons, and broadening our appeal is not one of them.
The full extent of this conversation is beyond this (already lengthy) blog post, but it bears mentioning: if there's something about the way the setting works that feels weird to you — if it makes you stop and go "wait, why is that?" — it's probably for a reason. Writers write to make the reader feel things. At its simplest, the chapter-end cliffhanger is meant to make you feel anticipation, to keep you turning the pages. At its most complex and artful, words can move us to laughter, or to tears. They can make us reconsider the way we see the world. And you can't do that if you're trying to fit your words to the least common denominator, trying to make them appeal to everyone, because the more you file off the rough edges, the less texture the whole thing will have.
The Affini are condescending imperialists. That's not going to change, even if it means hot plampt mommy TF not being one of the many kinks we have on tap. That doesn't mean you can't have your fun, but your fun has a context, and respecting that context, and the work that went into making that context, is the price of admission to the sandbox of our collective creative community.
Write with care. Write with love. That's all any of us can do.