Ruin Me 0.20 Preview and 0.19 BTS on Body Horror

Hi, perverts! As you might guess from this post coming later in the week, it's been a challenging one for me. I'm going to take it easy for this release and focus on loose threads and outstanding promises and not worry too much about adding a big chunk of stuff.

There hasn't been a poll for my Center of Attention patrons for a bit, but I'm going to put one up about costume customization. If you have suggestions for polls or additional offers that you think would be good incentives for contributing more, let me know, even if you aren't currently a $5 patron!

Barring a surprising number of cancelled pledges, I'll be working on the bonus reward image game soon! It'll be in the image CYOA style, as seen at:  https://www.reddit.com/r/nsfwcyoa/ 

Body Horror

I've talked a little bit about horror and disfigurement before. Disfigured, ill, and disabled people are not horrific, and I try not to treat them as such in my writing. What I do want to explore is the fear of how our bodies are vulnerable, material, and manipulable. Disease, infection, and bodily vulnerability are on a lot of minds right now, mine included, and I tried to explore some of that with The Abundant Horn expedition.

I don't tend to care for gory body horror; I like Alien and Hellraiser as much as the next horror enthusiast, but a lot of horror loses me as soon as it starts describing or showing blood and dismemberment. When handled clumsily, this can feel lazy and trite. I'm far more interested in the fear and discomfort inherent in the threat of bodily violation than the spectacle of actual damage.

I hope that this expedition managed to evoke that without portraying any actual injury. I'm still a bit conflicted about the tableau that you see if you go deepest during the expedition. The use of uterine imagery risks implying that childbirth and wombs are inherently horrific; they certainly have scary things about them, but I don't want to perpetuate normative ideas about bodies with uteri being dirty or scary or dangerous. Hopefully, this expedition portrays the potential of childbirth and creation as awe-inspiring, with the fear coming from the dread of the unknown future and the risk of something going wrong with the process.

Next Release

I've finished the play scene chosen in the last patron poll; it's now called "Have Theresa dominate you in manual sex" and requires all stats at 2. It was a lot of fun to write! It involves a favorite position of mine that everyone who has sex should try.

As I said above, I'm going to be generally chill on this release. I've still got a list of bugs and improvements I want to address, and I still want to work on Byron's (non-sexual) play scene. 

As always, if you have feedback, suggestions, or questions about Ruin Me and its development, please share them here, via PM, or in an email to: phanes@phanes.me

Thank you so much for your continued support.