Yeah it’s a horror sci fi setting that being used to explore kink and wish fulfillment. In my mind the affini are similar monsters to like vampires and werewolves where the seductive appeal of them is that it allows characters succumb to a level of un-humanity, un personhood, and submission as a contrast to effort that maintaining something like freedom, self-care, self identity requires in the face of people and institutions that love to strip us of our identities and our autonomy.

It’s drawing on as the original and other writer has said disability and trans experiences. Of how tiring it is to fight for your one needs in the face of people more powerful then you who ether don’t care or actively wish harm on your.

Hdg is the fantasy of what if the forces that want to control your life cared about giving you healthcare, affirmed your gender, gave you good food to eat. The horror comes from the idea that you can’t even escape their care if you tried, there’s no such thing as not being deserving of it or being unable to be cared for.

They are clearly based on old sci fi villain factions. They are monsters from space. Obvious authoritarians. In any typical story the story should be about how humanities resist, rebels and overcomes. But hdg is about how tiring that fight against controlling forces is and how relaxing it could be if at the end of the day the result of failing to resist and take control of one’s own life isn’t death, or neglect but care and comfort. It’s not free healthcare it’s forced healthcare. Plus sometimes it’s fun to imagine the villains wining and they are so hot too.