Catching Up On The Acekink Jam
The Human Domestication Guide Community Discord has been running an Acekink jam in November, and I figured it'd be worthwhile to spend a little while talking about what's been coming out of that, given that, as usual, the HDG community has prepared a fucking bounty of riches for us. Like. I mean. C'mon. The very first entry, technically put up on exactly Midnight on November 1st, to bridge the seasons, is House of Leaves: HDG edition.
You Cannot Wilt What Does Not Bloom by Dame Harmony (Dame_Harmony)
The veil is thin. The liminal space between the season of horror and the season of chastity has reached its true overlap point. In honour of Halloween, and in honour of the Acekink Jam...
An Acekink tale of the monstrous and the curious.
Ace-friendly: no explicit or implicit sexual contact.
Noteworthy tags: WHAT DO YOU MEAN HARMONY DID AN HDG HOUSE OF LEAVES
Okay, fine, you jerk, you win, I will start calling you pretentious. 😁
Four friends enter an affini haunted house, largely out of curiosity. Shenanigans ensue in delightful non-linear order. Big fan of this one. The use of bats in particular... it's, once again, a testament to Harmony's relentless creativity, which is, as with all of aer works, all over this story. It's so peak.
Anyways, you know how I feel about Harmony's writing. You know how I feel about Harmony's utter unwillingness to self-promote. So let me just post this screenshot to get performatively and amusingly angry about...
(COME ON Y'ALL THIS ONE IS SO APPROACHABLE AND SO GOOD, JUST FUCKIN' READ IT, I SWEAR HARMONY IS INCREDIBLE)
...And mosey along our merry way.
A Dance at Silver Lake by Juniperus_smol
Noteworthy tags: dollkink, blood play
The gentlemanly Sir Idris Onette knows very well how to bring out ones latent desires.
Of course, some require much less practically nothing to be convinced what's best for them.
A dance admist a field of flowers stained crimson on a silver lake will seal this doll's eternal fate.
Juniperus_smol is an author I've had my eye on for a little while, since reading the incredible and very sharp littlespace noncon story "Little Does She Know", and hoo boy is this piece lovely. Sometimes you just want pladdy to tell you what you need. And to pilot you like a marionette. And to not be a person. Very fun stuff!
Once More, With Feeling by Saranthos
Noteworthy tags: time loop, hypnosis, memory play
There is a siren sounding on the deck of the TCN Chiron's Arrow. Nelson needs to see what's the matter. Veris Hedera, Eighteenth Bloom has just recently found herself on board a Terran ship along with an absolutely adorable little human. Veris knows that she and Nelson are made for each other, and she's prepared to make sure that Nelson knows it too.
Ooh, this was a delightful surprise! Very reminiscent of John Terra's Last Stand in terms of structure and function, I simply adore this kind of progressive mindfuckery, and Saranthos executes on it beautifully. A genuinely really pleasant surprise on my end; what a lovely story by an author I'm not familiar with!
I Can't Motivate Myself To Hate You by Lagnia, sheepwave
7.6k words; 2 chapters out
Noteworthy tags: Little Sprout, Conflict Addiction
Lieutenant Misha ████ is in trouble. She is one of the few Terrans with the willpower to resist the affini, but she’s been captured by the Affini Compact along with the rest of her rebel crew.
Even if she’s been officially labeled a human pet, she knows that the fires of rage will help her keep away the buzzing in the back of her head just like they always have. Her captor, Malle Arboria, insists that she’s already been implanted, but clearly nothing about her behavior has changed!
As long as Misha feels hatred within herself, she’s still her, no matter what happens. She just needs to focus. Even if it’s hard. Harder than it used to be.
This is a story about ADHD, breaking a conflict addiction, age regression, kissing a giant spider, and focusing on the things that make you happy instead of those that make you angry.
So did y'all know that conflict can be addictive? I do. It fucking sucks, to have this constant urge to start fights and get into drama because my ADHD brain seeks stimulation. I've had to re-edit this post twice to cut out some very unproductive spite. There's a reason I don't hang out on most social media platforms; I get angry and it stops being fun, and I can't stop myself from being angry.
At the moment, there are two chapters of this out, and it's absolutely peak. Like, I've been let in on a bit of a spoiler of what actually happened to Misha, and uh... Holy shit. I would do domesticatable things for that treatment. Look, if all else fails, remember: it's fucking Lagnia and Sheepwave. I shouldn't have to explain to you that this is going to be fucking incredible. I just shouldn't. You either already know, or you should be reading some of their works right now instead of this list!
Up In Smoke by RocketMermaid23
Olivia Assamica comes home to her Daddy, Mel Assamica, Second Bloom, and helps her relax after a long day of work.
Much like another recent RocketMermaid piece, this is not my kink, but having read this fic, I think I understand it a lot better. It's largely 2.4k words of an affini using their floret as an ashtray, with a bonus bit of extremely cute nervous top syndrome. RocketMermaid writes fun stories, and this one-shot is some delightfully self-indulgent stuff.
What you signed up for by Lagnia, violet_moonvine
Moringa Oleifera hurries home, weakened and weary. It is a quiet night before the implantation of faer floret, Saturn. Fae is very, truly satisfied with faer work with her, if a bit sapped for strength. Surely from a long day of petsitting.
Saturn Oleifera, recent volunteer floret cuddles up one late eve with her tablet, a small trove of junk food, and the nagging feeling of something out of place. She is very, truly happy, as she waits for her Owner, Moringa Oleifera to return home from petsitting.
So why do they feel so empty?
Oh, okay, we get another Lagnia collab, this time with violet_moonvine, whose previous work, Love Doesn't Ask For Permission, hit me like a metric ton of bricks and holds up as one of the hottest class-C stories in the entire setting. And it's peak. Holy shit. An affini and their floret realizing that their current easygoing dynamic just isn't quite working for either of them, and a. Correction. It is absolutely peak; a story told from both perspectives, and both are incredibly fun and hot.
Wow, it's wild how many amazing authors showed up for this. Who really care about asexuality in HDG, and asexual representation in general. Anyways, moving on:
Taming The Wolf by sheepwave, Slylittleprincess
12k words; 3 chapters; ongoing/likely to be long
Ace-friendly: explicitly and intentionally
Notable tags: fluffy courtship, humans are pets and I mean it
In 2554, humanity was conquered and domesticated by the Affini Compact. That was generations ago to Luna, a dominant human wolfgirl who doesn’t like being indoors.
She wants to be a floret, but her personality makes her very… particular. So she hops onto a random ship on its way to the next campaign, hoping to be courted by an owner along the way.
Sorias is an Affini ecology engineer with a body also styled like a canine predator, a love of bringing out the best in nature with careful cultivation, and the heart of a romantic under the grassy fur.
This is a story of contradictions. About becoming a loyal pet without giving up dominance, and about finding a forever home while still being free to roam.
Oh hey, another sheepwave collab! And it's so goddamn good holy shit. I have known Luna for all of three chapters, and if anything happened to her I'd kill et cetera et cetera et cetera.
So it's not just that Slylittleprincess and sheepwave are two of the most talented authors in the entire space, it's that this specific collaboration brought us From Pawn To Princess, and it's looking like that same level of magic and whimsy is given to us here. I just love this stupid wolfgirl! She really is lowercase-d "domesticated" to the point that she can't imagine that anything is actually dangerous because she's grown up her whole life in the compact, and if it was dangerous, the affini wouldn't allow it. She's not afraid of being capital-D Domesticated either; her only fear is that she ends up courted by an affini who doesn't take romance seriously and just snatches her up. Well, that, and also any form of rejection whatsoever.
It's frustrating the degree to which Sheepwave writes these incredibly specific, relatable characters. I've been waiting for some shoe to drop on this before giving it its own post, but... c'mon. Sheepwave and SlyLittlePrincess. An affini who looks like a cross between a werewolf, Roadhog, and Father Christmas. Tali being Tali. A hot fuzzy wolfgirl. And I shouldn't have to tell you by now - Sheepwave makes some pretty incredible art.
(This seems as good a time as any to state that I consider @sheepwavehdg to be one of the most unambiguously positive creative voices in the HDG community.)
This isn't everything; it's just a smattering of highlights. There are new fics by Belenen and Victorinya as well, which I didn't get to because this post is already going long. The point is, this writing jam is full of incredibly good stories and really talented authors, and I'm excited to see what else comes out of it. There's even a new Cadence file, which, while not yet officially part of the jam, would be an excellent fit for it.
Anyways, I've been pretty busy and not as active on this blog as I might otherwise be, but it's good to be back to reminding everyone why HDG and the community built around it is awesome.
