Ambelopoulia
We are what you eat.
(Hover over an underlined phrase to see additional, frequently non-diagetic, context about that phrase.)
Contents
Description
Andrea_, "Blank"
- Gender: Trans Woman
- Nationality: French
- Pronouns: she/her/her/hers/herself
- Species: Ortolan
Blank is a short, fit avian. She has muted brown plumage with black stripes down her back, save for her chest, which is golden, and a short light red beak framed by two stripes of gold on either side. She has no hair to speak of, just more feathers, and her eyes are beady, black, and curious. At her left temple, there's some kind of implant, a ring softly glowing blue. Her legs are long and spindly, and her arms are long, toned, and have wings attached to the backs and her sides. Fanning out behind her is a tail that goes down to her knees.
Typically, on her chest is a red and white vertically-striped belly shirt, and with this, she'll have pair of black shorts that barely reach past her thighs, and a pair of white paper leg warmers done up to look like drumstick caps. Her feet are light red with long, sharp talons, three toes spread out in front and one in back.
Andreas, "S"
- Gender: Trans Man
- Nationality: Cypriot
- Pronouns: he/him/his/his/himself
- Species: Ortolan
S is a short, fit avian. He has muted brown plumage with black stripes down his back, save for his chest, which is golden, and a short light red beak framed by a moustache of gold on either side. He has no hair to speak of, just more feathers, and his eyes are beady, black, and sharp. At his right temple, there's some kind of implant, a ring softly glowing blue. His legs are long and spindly, and his arms are long, toned, and have wings attached to the backs and his sides. Fanning out behind him is a tail that goes down to his knees.
Typically, he wears a crumpled tan jacket that's probably made of leather but looks like deep-fried breading. The jacket is usually open to show a red and white vertically-striped sports bra. Completing this outfit is usually a pair of stretchy black skinny jeans. His feet are light red with long, sharp talons, three toes spread out in front and one in back.
Ambelopoulia
- Gender: Bigender
- Nationality: Global
- Pronouns: on/on/on's/ons/onself
- Species: Hivemind (2x Ortolan)
Ambelopoulia is the name given to the gestalt of S and Blank, which is a kind of third entity that exists simultaneously with the two of them. On could be said to be, or represent, anything from their relationship to the intersection of their minds to the two individuals as an organization, and this would be grasping towards, but not quite achieving, what on is. On is if S and Blank's brains, despite being fully functional brains, were also lobes of a meta-brain. Like if their brainwaves could constructively interfere to create a separate brainwave, necessarily related but also distinct. On is the entity that S and Blank have dedicated their lives to embodying and reifying.
All three entities are tetralingual in Hexagonal French[1], Cypriot Greek, English, and body[2]
Background
Ambelopoulia lives in a society which has not yet resolved petty yet devastating oppressions such as speciesism, and is an activist choosing to drive on's culture forward through uncomfortable art. On's chosen medium is dance. On perceives the world as considering on's bodies to be disposable and consumable, which is why on chose to name onself after a Cypriot dish made from songbirds. It's also certainly no coincidence that both S and Blank are not just any songbirds: they are ortolan, a bird with a brutal history of being force-fed pablum, drowned in alcohol, roasted, and eaten with towels over the diner's faces, as the legend goes, to hide their sins from God.
As such, their choice of attire may seem to make more sense: Paper covers for legs, KFC-striped tops, batter-fried jackets -- Ambelopoulia has decided that it's not enough to simply stand by and be consumed without at least looking the part. On insists on a kind of kayfabe in which on's bodies must also present as food, so as to ask: Isn't this what you wanted? Isn't this what you were about to do to us anyway? All I'm doing is revealing what is frequently left hidden. You cannot simply cover it with a towel. God sees everything, and so should you.
Performances
Ambelopoulia's performances are dance routines in the vein of Les Twins[3], with extreme synchronization, mime and seemingly spacetime-defying slowdowns and reversals. However, on's performances are mainly themed after on's core ethos. During performances, on has thrown onselves into pools of alcohol (or at least, water that has been dyed to resemble alcohol; on would like to be able to afford swimming pools of Armagnac, but alas), being doused in cooking oil and flinging it everywhere with the movements of on's bodies, eating millet seed forced down each throat by the other body, covering both bodies in condiments, death drops into roasting pans on top of beds of vegetables, you name it.
Gear
Ambelopoulia could not exist without two-way high-speed brain implants that allow each member access to the mind and body of the other. This is what the light in each body's temples are. This interface has sufficient bandwidth to allow S and Blank to control and synchronize each others' bodies, even to speak using the others' mouths, definitely enough to finish each others' sentences or to simultaneously deliver whatever Ambelopoulia might have to say. Due to the fact that each other's body is much closer to interoceptive correctness, they tend to spend a lot of time controlling each other as a form of gender euphoria. On sometimes jokes that eventually, they'll just swap completely, though their relationship to gender and their own bodies is slightly more complicated than that.
- ↑ The variant of French spoken in France itself.
- ↑ If you haven't seen a rap battle done entirely through the use of dance, this may be a strange concept to wrap one's head around.
- ↑ Example of the dance style
