#Amorphous Androgynous

[trashpandaqc]

good read for anyone interested in 90s rave history

and worth asking where the ideals of this scene, which still feel very relevant, went off to in the past couple decades - illegalized, pushed further underground, shamed into seriousness by post-9/11 warmongering and commercial composure, distracted, diffused, and displaced by increasingly tech-mediated life?

some tunes mentioned in the book + a couple others from the era...

[phynixdotcom]

If you press the button there is no questions from anyone, nobody refers to your previous self, & no issue is caused beyond learning to be comfortable in your body & choice.

[whereserpentswalk]

Choose a transformation to permanently alter your body and remove your humanity.

1: get infected with lycanthrope (being bitten is the easiest way, but the curse can also be passed on through blood transfusions, or other bodily fluids). You'll be able to turn into a wolf any night when the moon shines, and you'll be compelled to when the moon is full. The other werewolves are likely to accept you into their community under most circumstances.

2: enter a local ufo to be turned into a cyborg. The visitors are dying to find a human who'll let you do this to them, and you might just be the one. Parts of your body will be replaced with strange and unknowable technology, thousands of years more advanced than what your backwater planet has. Who knows what you'll become, but it certainly won't be human.

3: allow a demon to possess you. While this sounds bad at first, most demons aren't actually sentient beings, but just semi sentient balls emotions. When they possess you it'll still be your mind and personality, just enhanced with the demon's emotions and desires, given its abilities. You'll also probably start looking more like what people consider a demon to look like after awhile, weather that be a body with horns and scales like the classic devil look, or something more animalistic, or even something more eldrich.

4: let the faeries play with you. This is a risky one but they're looking to be entertained by a cute little human to do things to. Who knows what they'll do to you, but we can be quite certain it'll be something very very interesting.

5: permanently psychically bond to a wyvern through the dreaming. For generations humans have done this to become wyvern riders, though rider is an odd term as your minds will be linked, you'll be able to know what it's feeling as well as it's sensations, and possibly even be able to control it directly with enough time, as easily as you'd control your own body. Though the wyvern and dreaming may effect you to, you'll likely become more creative and have more vivid dreams, at the cost of your ability to fit in with much of human society. Your body will also likely become more youthful, slender and androgynous, and may even take on wyvern like traits like slit pupils or sharp teeth.

6: permanently hybridize yourself with an animal of your choice. It's useally done with mammals for compatibility reasons, but it might work with anything. This is a slow process, involving weekly injections of Phlebotinum, and you'll get more and more like the animal you choose over the course of many months. There's no actual end limit to how long you can inject the Phlebotinum for, only a few weeks for some animal features, about a year for a 50/50 split, and if you never stop taking it ever you'll end up just becoming an animal of your choice. Be warned, it's a one way trip, so while you can always become less human, you can never reverse the changes.

7: be melted into a slime. Not much more to say about it. It'll probably be the most alien your physical form can become, as you'll have no solid body parts anymore, just an amorphous mass to move around. Natrual born slimes may be suspicious of you.

8: get bitten by a vampire and become a vampire yourself. You'll get most of the powers, from strength, to healing, to not needing sleep or food, along with the requirements to drink blood, and the weakness to silver and sunlight (you still can go out in the sun, but it won't be a pleasant experience). Your body will also change a lot, losing any sex characteristics, gaining red eyes and completely desaturated skin, and becoming extremely emaciated looking. Your mouth will also be able to shift at will between a humanoid shape, and a massive horrifying maw with huge fangs and strange mouth parts for drinking blood. There's likely a vampiric community around who'll accept you.

9: become a digital only being. You won't just be transforming your body, you'll be getting rid of it. Your entire vision will display what you'd usually see on a computer monitor, and you'll be able to type and move the mouse as easily as you can move your body now. You'll be entirely online without anything human to worry about.

10: become a spiritual being. Like a less online version of the last option. You'll become a spirit, without a body to worry about. You can't touch things, but you can move them psychically. You can also choose who can or can't see you, and how you appear to people.

11: have your entire body replaced by the cloth witches. They're always looking for humans to do this to. Every part of you will be replaced with artificial materials, usually you'll get a metal skeleton, stuffing for filling, and either cloth or plastic for your skin, like a doll of some sort but big and alive. You won't have to worry about a lot of the body things like dying or being tired or in pain, but be warned, you'll have to repair yourself with new material if damaged.

(Hey, I had to delete the first version of this poll and reupload it because of something on the old post setting off my silly little trauma. I feel like such an awful person for this, I'm sorry. But yeah, please reblog and interact with this version instead.)

[fairlylocalcryptid]

actually not ftm or mtf but a secret third thing (transitioning from "an amorphous amalgamation of half-formed faces to make a hot androgyne with wings and a third eye" to "hot androgyne with wings in a sick anachronistic suit holding my own dead severed head trailing spinal cord and fetus")

[amaryllis-sagitta]

I might be reading way too much into this, but after the first look at the new Chaos design I think there might be some kind of a dialectic going on within themself.

The original design is more amorphous and neutral in its presentation, sure. It emphasizes two things to me:

that Chaos is constantly churning on the inside, and

that they birthed the chtonic entities (or at least Nyx and Erebus, which is interesting since in Hades games, Nyx is personified and Erebus is a whole ass biome) and they constantly spawn new potential entities or incarnations of themself, as represented by fetuses and faces protruding from the different parts of their gnarly body.

The new design shows us a well put together androgynous figure in a sparkly suit (though leaning a little more towards femme presentation), holding a skull with a piece of a spine still attached.

As a matter of fact, I believe that the skull is one of the Hades 1 Chaos themself. It has the familiar Chaos sigil on its forehead, and there's a fetus coming out of its mouth. Which to me hints that between the events of Hades 1 and Hades 2, the Primordial Originator's avatar reached some breaking point and had to be reborn. Perhaps Kronos/ Chronos (???) breaking out sowed so much turmoil in the world that Primordial Chaos has inadvertently spread themself thin, and their own realm had to be reformed. In that condition, it would make sense for them to hold themself tighter whenever they need to speak to someone.

The new look feels so very... corporate and luminous, aside from being more anthropomorphic. The look reminds us of the Furies from the first game. To me, it represents form over substance, which would add an interesting dialectical beat to Chaos: even within themself, they can fluctuate between having more or less Form; the Form, too, is already anticipated to come out of Chaos. This new design is controversial because it brings Chaos closer to Form and Light, something that feels paradoxical. They have what looks like a pocket watch in their lapel - they are related to Time!

Which would push the understanding of Chaos towards the Aristotelian concept of change, making them something like Prime Potentiality - the domain where things "wait" for the right timing or the right circumstances to become. This interpretation seems to go well with how H1 Chaos could never be fully present in the world, could never visit their children; the world is where possibilities get actualized into, and Chaos is the conceptualized "point" where everything actualizes from.

And isn't this paradoxical feel about Chaos's new design consistent with their previous presentation as a force in flux that holds multiple internal voices and pairs of logical contradictions, and loves all that's unpredictable?

(Disclaimer: I'm not a classicist, I'm a philosopher, so I appreciate extra on insight on that. I love Chaos's design from H1 and I want to understand the new one.)

[quinnhills]

I don’t know what happened to the original question post, but some kind soul told me that I generate gender envy and asked that I provide advice on how to achieve the 6 other deadly gender sins. Hope this finds its way back to that envious stranger:

GENDER WRATH…Scroll through my blog and look at all the photos of me. If your envy’s already in gear, this should royally piss you off!!

GENDER SLOTH…I’m in sweatpants in a t-shirt right now. No bra. No wig. Most of the day, I don’t wear makeup. My base form is amorphous and androgynous. Be like me.

GENDER LUST…Repeat the instructions from “Gender Wrath”

GENDER GLUTTONY…I left my old gender in a dumpster somewhere near Charleston, South Carolina. Anyone’s welcome to grab it. ALSO, if you’re looking for some E, I read this morning that the Burger King Impossible Burger has a whopping amount of estrogen in it. Have it your way (call me, BK)

GENDER GREED…This one’s easy. Grab a dictionary. Every word in there is now your name and your pronouns. You’re welcome.

GENDER PRIDE…Get a Blåhaj. Wave the flag. Support your trans and non-binary siblings in any way you can. Especially financially (call me, BK)

[thecoolerliauditore]

I've only skimmed a lot of the posts so sorry if this point has been made but I wonder how peoples' perception of Masculinity vs Femininity as a spectrum affects their perception of characters and designs. Do some people view Masculinity and Feminity as complete opposites, with androgyny as the middle ground? Can you be masculine and feminine simultaneously, while not really being androgynous? Does the 'threshold' of androgyny change depending on how the cc/character is depicted in 'canon'? to be clear I don't necessarily think any of these viewpoints are 100% correct or whatever but I think it's interesting how people will have different perspectives, because most people's view of gender are skewed different and what might read as a fem design could read masculine to another or just entirely androgynous. sorry for the ramble this stuff fascinates me deeply

No yeah it is fascinating!! It's a. very complicated topic since of course the concepts of "masculinity" and "femininity" are very frivolous and amorphous, hence why I kept feeling the need to clarify how it gets. Weird with anime-inspired styles what with the culture shock and whatnot.

This song was really popular in fandoms awhile back and I think it's like. a great example of how one culture's completely neutral (or even masculine!) traits can be seen as feminine (or in this case, "gay") when viewed by another. It's also just really funny and I'm kinda sad no on has done a life series animatic to it yet.

masculinity and femininity as a scale with androgynous in the middle is also something I'm glad you bring up, because the concepts of masculinity and femininity are so arbitrary and as such there are so many ways to deviate from the norm -- some more socially acceptable than others! Thinking about, for example, the young MAGA hat'd women you see on sites like twitter with the most racist takes of all time and who are very proud of their ability to keep up with the boys in terms of 'murican masculinity (chugging beers, changing tires, so on and so forth) but at the same time cake their faces with makeup, support that Hashtag tradwife lifestyle and Would Not Ever Consider wearing clothes from the mens section because that is the Bad type of gender non-conformity for commies and lesbians or whatever.

Compare that to like. sorry incoming irl lore. the way I've had people in both more liberal and less woke areas get nervous when they try to address me, with the only big difference being that more younger, liberal people will typically either ask for my pronouns or they/them me by default.

I'm lucky enough that most people here are polite but as someone who has presented both masc/fem the way people treat me is so distinctly different based on my perceived gender as well as my level of androgyny it was kind of shocking to me. Eitherway there's a distinct attitude it's like. Rude to not be able to tell whether someone's a man or woman I've noticed and nowadays I have a lot of fun stressing people out. Sadism in me or whatever.

ANYWAY this was about minecraft youtubers. Analysing how people gender their designs, unconsciously or not, is fascinating because of how interpretative these designs are. There's also probably something you could say about how gaming youtuber is a very male-dominated space and how female gaming youtubers tend to overperform femininity, but in very different ways dependent on their intended audience (compare say. Lizzie and Pokimane for example.)

I think it's also worth noting that like. masculinity and femininity in behaviour is very different from physical presentation. which is how you get images like this

in addition to, again, these concepts already being abstract.

and of course, all said with me biting my tongue on the queer side of things still, because that's a whole other sub-sector of stereotypes and in-group signalling and history that runs convergent with mainstream views on gender.

I think it might be an interesting exercise to put your own designs up against others and consider what points they differ and what that might mean for how the other artist interprets the character vs how you do it. And then if you can look up what the artist actually has to say about the character and see just how right/wrong you were and how your own biases come into play. Two different people can have very similar views on a character, for example, but communicate that through opposite design tropes because they have different associations with said tropes. Not just for gender things btw and I've found peoples more nuanced opinions are harder to read than you'd think! I don't think anyone would look at my Bdubs design and guess that I thought he was fairly feminine in personality, for example.

I love doing that and challenging my own pre-conceptions of what i think peoples takes are judging by their designs (as well as what I think certain traits indicate in personality!). It's amazing for example how many pearl designs I've seen as too feminine and rolled my eyes at turn out to be drawn by artists who very much consider her to be tomboyish.

[sweettoofkee]

snippet from a series about poe taking over ranpo's mind with his Kind Deeds™️ he helps get atsushi a winter coat

“Ranpo-san?” Atsushi adjusted the plastic convenience bag in his hands. “I'm sorry to bother if you're busy!”

The kids were coming back from break - a quarter over Kunikida’s heavily suggested half an hour, probably thanks to Dazai. Atsushi stood aside his desk chair in a good jacket they'd “all” put money towards.

No one knew the whole share was really Poe’s.

He'd complained about it half-heartedly as they returned from a cafe trip. The temperatures were dropping as winter came, and the poor kid was going pale tagging along every mission in Yokohama. He didn't have any shared interests with the boy, and he didn't find him particularly smart or anything - but Ranpo knew what it was to be young and cold and powering through it.

“Do you…think your boss would mind if..if I helped?” Poe was fidgeting with his hands, turning the rings on his middle fingers nervously. 

Ranpo had wrinkled his nose as if to snarl, but he scoffs instead, gently, “That's weird - you don't even know him.” He yanked off his shoes at the heel, balancing on the other foot. “Why do you care?”

Poe was squeezing and rubbing at his knuckles, the skin reddening under the contact. “Well, he's your colleague?” Ranpo couldn't tell if he was stating it or asking. “And just a kid. He seems quite driven, from what you've told me. He deserves a coat, at least.”

Ranpo turns to stare at him, barefoot in his entrance hall. He looks him up and down. He really means it. 

Poe mistook his silence for suspicion, or maybe disdain. “You could, um, pass it off as your gift. I don't mean to be…weird.” He was  getting warm - Ranpo could tell by how he seemed to finally prioritize getting his coat off, then his own shoes. He skipped the laces entirely to draw down the zippers along the sides of his high boots. “Or, we could forget it entirely-”

“No, no,” Ranpo waved a hand as Poe tilted his head up. “It's your money - you can do whatever you want with it.”

Fukuzawa had raised an eyebrow when he put the envelope of money on his desk. Poe had insisted on hand writing quite the letter to Fukuzawa pardoning his gesture. Ranpo had read it over for him before getting him to cut it down to one fucking page finally. He didn't stay to watch Fukuzawa read it. His ears and face were burning at the thought. 

When Fukuzawa presented the envelope - sans Poe’s permission letter - to Atsushi, he told him it was a gift from everyone at the Agency. Ever the boy scout, Atsushi made sure to thank everyone that day. They were all confused. Both Kunikida and Yosano asked him what the young tiger was on about, but Ranpo simply shrugged and played it off. When Atsushi shied up at the end of the day to finally thank him as well, Ranpo knew his ears were probably red then, too.

“I even have enough to get some sweaters I’ve been looking at!” The boy beamed at him, and tucked the envelope into his work bag before leaving the office.

Ranpo’s staring at the pattern of Atsushi’s coat when he tunes back into the present. It’s dark green, almost black. It’s sewn in a plush quilted pattern, with deep pockets and dark cuffs. It covers the kid to his knees. It’s androgynous and subtly stylish - not something Ranpo would wear but he could imagine Atsushi in a department store, running the material between his fingers. It suits him.

Right, he thinks. The bag.

He leans over to pull open his nearest snack stash - the drawer where he should keep case files, if he didn’t open and solve them all in the same day. It’s already full - Poe saw to that as well. At the start of the week, he���d received a large package addressed to the Agency with his name on it. A small card had been taped inside the box of treats, stating simply,

Enjoy, from Karl.

The fanciful ink curves were by no raccoon. Of course they weren't. Ranpo had felt warmth and another fuzzy amorphous something spark and settle in his chest.

He glances from the offered bag to his drawer. These new ones would barely fit. He doesn’t want to be ungrateful, but half the treats are what would be his second picks anyway. He wonders where this lack of appetite is coming from, and turns his head to stare at the buttons on Atsushi’s jacket. It really is a nice coat.

“Why don’t you split them with Kyouka-kun?”

Atsushi, always looking for his mentor’s opinion, immediately casts a puzzling glance Dazai’s way, but the man only shrugs.

Good. Recently, Ranpo finds himself wanting everyone else as far away from this as possible - whatever this is. He doesn't want anyone coming to any funny conclusions or asking him any stupid questions about this. He tells himself he's protecting Poe too - that they'll pester him, overwhelm him.

Kyouka waves her hand from her spot at her desk, and the moment is forgotten as soon as Atsushi crosses the office, holding the bag out and open to her as he nears.

[khaotic-entity]

Realising im literally an amorphous blob

Gender fluid

Demi romantic

Abrosexual

According to people i know my face is androgynous

Im literally a shapeless mass

[rpfofficial]

gonna log out and be boring but one final post. goodbye cruel world. it has been lovely becoming ethan kafkaguy just one further step towards us being inside each other and melding into one androgynous amorphous being. goodnight

[chaoselph]

Thessalien Stoa Paradosi from eL-Hortobāgyi Hortator

The golden pigeon has landed: László Hortobãgyi’s screwed psy-trance and expansive new age dubs are collated by contemporary enigma Nikolas Rafael Hadjilaskaris in a masterwork of playful, fantasy tekgnosis for new label Ελχελέλ (ElHellEl) - think Amorphous Androgynous playing a secret ECM stage at Boomtown, or Mark Snow jamming with Rex Ilusivii and Suns of Arqa in Goa. It’s fucking beyond! -Boomkat

[ginkgo-a-go-go]

Alright, ranking Peter Hammill albums (until 1981 & really based on my personal schizo taste)

1. Over

2. Nadir's Big Chance

3. A Black Box

4. The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage

5. PH7

6. Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night

7. Sitting Targets

8. The Future Now

9. Fool's Mate

10. In Camera

Sending that bc it's nice to have conversations & discussions with you -I began with Hammill's solo albums in June. Well I also listened to Skin & Fireships as a whole but that little list is enough for now- sorry if it was too random

i agree with your ranking, but in camera at tenth place? ouch😅

what exactly makes it worse than, let's say, the silent corner and the empty stage (which is probably my favorite ph album)?

[aww thank you, likewise :) btw have you listened to the relatively recent collab album with amorphous androgynous? i think it's pretty neat but unfortunataly it isn't on spotify anymore :( ]

[softichill]

I am one gender but that gender is made of a bunch of other genders swirling together and making this sort of amorphous blob that I know is me. But like I can't put any label on it other than 'me' bc trying to stick specific labels on it other than very very general ones seems like trying to fit it into a shape that it just isn't

And even then the general ones don't rlly fit because they still feel like trying to sort it into neat little boxes. Technically I'm androgynous bc I'm not leaning towards boy or girl, but that doesn't rlly work bc I don't want to be one specific thing? Especially presentation-wise. I just want to be me and play my silly little gender games. It feels like some sort of specific goal or aim that I don't want

Yeah I still have labels, mainly catgender and bitgender, but those are less "THESE are my genders" and more like "these are the most prevalent/common traits in my gender blob that affect everything else somehow"

[sylvandalism]

random musings from my drafts on style:

I take a certain amount of joy in arranging my outfits and cross referencing and matching shades so that they all comes together in one lovely visage. one of my favorite parts of planning for any event has always been deciding the outfit- how to select and style it appropriately. at one point I got really into the YouTube/fashion blogs/reddit side of it all which I still find somewhat interesting but I realized it’s not so much trends that I care about but the process behind what we wear. style can both complement and extend your sense of self. I still thinks trends can be fascinating to observe over time and what they transmit about the State of Things (hemlines relating to impending recessions, the popularity of androgynous styles speaking to a more nuanced understanding of gender, the commodification of the working man’s tools a la carhartt, etc.), but I’m not rushing to change my wardrobe every couple of months because some influencer said Chelsea boots aren’t in anymore. that’s the lovely aspect of fashion and what you come to realize as you get older: you dress best when you dress for yourself. it can seem like a silly little adage but it is a nice one to have in your pocket. for example, I’ve learned that I really value structure in my outfits, so no matter how hard I try to pull off the oversized and amorphous shearling coat look, it just doesn’t do it for me. and that’s fine because I can use the principle of the trend and apply it elsewhere in a way that does make me feel comfortable and good.

there are of course valuable rules of thumb which I find helpful when it comes to looking more deliberately polished. people ask me what I use and where I get things from to which I usually want to respond that it’s not the source that matters (barring of course the ethical fashion debate which is a whole other can of worms) but what it is. you’re looking for excellent construction and attention to details (reinforced seams, no loose threads, padding, etc), coordination with the rest of your color palette and closet, and complementing the setting (seasonally appropriate, formal vs informal etc). for example if you’d like a wide leg trouser silhouette, in the summer you’d opt for a light colored lined linen pant with brighter colors and in the winter you’d go for a wool blend with appropriate footwear and outerwear. perhaps that’s where the more conservative side of style comes into play but I do think some of the rules have stuck around because there’s some merit to it. at the very least I derive a measure of comfort from looking more polished and deliberate in a society that’s endlessly critical of appearances.

and then there’s the issue of branding and quality which is a slippery slope because the whole concept of quality is now mired in conversations about over consumption, terrible labor practices, ethically dubious marketing policies, greenwashing and so on. it got really overwhelming at some point so I withdrew from it for a while and now I find myself returning to the methodology behind our clothes: why we love certain colors during the seasons, the elegance of the way raw silk drapes, the cut of a coat and how it rests on your shoulders. i am privileged to be able to deliberate over my clothes- I can choose them and arrange them as needed.

growing up my aunt loved to make our formal clothes: she would take our measurements, source the proper fabric, find matching accessories, and take them to the tailor to get sewn. and then we would have fitting sessions in the living room and she would walk around scrutinizing the dress, pinching and pulling on the fabric and hem. If the sleeves were too itchy or the length too long, it would go back to the tailor or she might whip out her sewing machine and adjust it right there. it could take weeks to months for an outfit to materialize to her perfection, but it usually ended up being the nicest dress I’d ever worn.

[trevlad-sounds]

The Meld Well 002 1 Kim's Spirit / DupSys Vow 00:00 Animism Muzan Editions 2 Beyond Our Galaxy Elegy 04:47 Surface Analysis Cyclical Dreams 3 Liwi Sprites 10:26 Compilation vol. 1 Ambient Curation 4 Mort Garson Cathedral of Pleasure 13:10 Music from Patch Cord Productions Sacred Bones Records 5 Warm Binary Solipsism 19:08 Decay Mystery Circles 6 Ogle Robotheme 19:53 Cascade Preston Capes, Woodford Halse 7 King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Dreams - Yu Su Instrumental Mix 26:16 Butterfly 3001 King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard 8 Harald Grosskopf Emphasis 27:19 CV Vision: Bureau B Favorites Bureau B 9 Dohnavùr Cloudback 32:08 Pristine Environments Werra Foxma 10 Burt Orange Kiwi Coconut 37:06 Selections from the Produce Section Analog Junkie Studio 11 E Ruscha V Tree Ring Circus 40:13 And The Only Thingz, Too Secret Circuit 12 Future Children Unplug the Medicine 44:57 Twelve Summer Stories Future Children 13 Amorphous Androgynous Goodbye Sky - Reprise 48:55 The Isness The Amorphous Androgynous 14 Nico Georis Love 49:52 Nicasio Synth Tapes (2012) Milky Way Radio 15 Field Lines Cartographer Rain Clouds Descending 53:54 Moonbuilding Autumn Collection Moonbuilding, Castles In Space