The Human Domestication Guide is a popular Web Original collaborative erotic writing project started by GlitchyRobo about the empire of supremacist plant aliens called the Affini conquering a spacefaring humanity (Terrans) and turning a portion of their population into "florets", a social class comprised of all species (occasionally including other Affini) that have undergone the multifaceted pacification and subjugation process described holistically by the Affini as "domestication."
The series originally began on the erotic fiction website Read Only Mind, but moved to Archive of Our Own after ROM banned new HDG stories from being posted there due to overwhelming the site.
Human Domestication Guide provides examples of:
- Alien Invasion: The backstory of the setting is the Affini conquest of humanity.
- Bee People: The aptly named Beeple, who were the first xenosophonts conquered by the Affini and originated from the same home-world as them.
- Benevolent Alien Invasion: The Affini invasion is sometimes depicted this way, and whatever one feels about Domesication the Post-Scarcity Economy it brings IS an improvement over the capitalist hell of the Terran Accord for a lot of its population.
- Chummy Commies: Successful rebel movements against the Terran Accord typically get this treatment, such as the prisoner's revolt on the Penal Colony of Solstice in No Gods, No Masters that despite limited resources is shown to provide a better life than the Accord before Solstice's inevitable conquest by the Affini Compact.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Affini were able to easily destroy the Terran Accord in an incredibly one-sided conflict.
- The Evils of Free Will: The Affini believe this regarding other species. A sophont opposing domestication is called "Feralism", considered a dangerous radical ideology.
- Fetish-Fuel Future: Serves as a core tenet of the work, with humanity becoming the thralls of a dominant, extremely-advanced race in a utopian future, with hypnosis, drugs, and body modification being peppered in as well.
- Happiness in Slavery: Affini custom is that xenosophonts are only truly happy when mastered by an Affini, and any xenosophont who isn't is simply broken and needs to be fixed by being brainwashed into compliance. Thus, most florets are either happy to be broken or are brainwashed into being happy.
- Hide Your Children: One of the mandates for a story to be considered canon; since the entire setting is pornographic, no characters under the age of 18 are allowed to be shown or even mentioned post-Affini takeover.
- Human Pet: The end goal of what the Affini want for humanity is for all of them to become cared for under Affini rule, which includes making 20-45% of them into florets.
- I Die Free: Some humans want to commit suicide before they are fully brainwashed into florets. Owing to sprawling Affini surveillence technology they're often stopped, rare successes such as Vanessa in Control require long and specific misdirecting prep work.
- Invincible Villain: As a rule of the setting, the Affini are inevitable and will domesticate any sapient species they come across eventually. As such, they never get any sort of setback to their plans and humans cannot achieve any sort of victory that matters.
- Not Helping Your Case: Affini wartime propaganda emphasizes the inevitability of Domestication rather than benefits of Compact rule, failing to convince any Terrans to turncoat. One Analyst's Opinion proposes that this is deliberate: The Compact is powerful enough to easily win anyway, so sowing discord in the Accord would just cause needless Terran deaths.
- People's Republic of Tyranny: The Terran Accord is on paper a liberal democracy with fair elections. In practice, it is a Fascist Police State where political opposition quickly gets jailed and megacorporations rule the frontiers where government reach is weak.
- Plant People: The Affini are towering humanoid plant aliens.
- Post-Scarcity Economy: The Atomic Compliers allow the Affini Compact to exist as a post-scarcity society.
- Propaganda Machine: Before it is forced to surrender, the Terran Accord fed its population with war propaganda that massively exaggerated the atrocities comitted by the Affini.
- The Right of a Superior Species: The Affini view themselves as superior to all xenosophonts and believe that because of that, they must subjugate and domesticate all of them.
- Scary Dogmatic Aliens: The Affini are a mixture of Aliens as Communists and Aliens as Conquistadors. They are a rare example of Scary Dogmatic Aliens being portrayed positively by the narrative.
- Slave Race: While the Affini do take human pets, their society has no need for labor, and their florets are effectively sex slaves.
- Vichy Earth: After the conquest and destruction of the Terran accord, the Affini now rule over humanity.
- White Man's Burden: The Affini believe that it is their duty to "uplift" and care for all xenosophonts, regardless of what the xenosophonts think.