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| If an alien society had a completely malleable physical form what would love look like? |
Are you going to create a form that represents you, or shape yourself specifically wish to attract?
Is that culture going to develop its own dating culture of eccentric abstract shapes or long limbs or deliberately hiding their shapeshifts.
Will it favor difficult shifts that require effort to maintain?
Will some deliberately shaping themselves to be repulsive or formless?
Will they shapeshift to becomes different trends or distinct groups? (As if some will be squares, some will be circles)
Perhaps there are limited shifts akin to telomere shortening. Some might shift early, exhausting themselves in youth. Some might never shift, and leave the possibility on the table, constantly researching and conducting experiments on optimal shifts but never finding time to perform one. Some might share their final shift for their true love, or find their love and never shift again.
Will who they are physically cease to matter, because they can be whatever and what they’ll find love will be purely dictated by the observation of their environments? In the sense that are part of the dating process they’ll perform an almost investigative survey of the physical trail of the lover’s day, like observing their room, or how they treat others and dating off that. They might not even care to see the shapeshifter, just observe their room.
I’d shapeshift to be a shadow of a late summer day.
Imagine if I shapeshifted and one day found myself.
These are in a form, virtual avatar questions. But the avatars we experience might have even more questions to deal with. Our own bodies we have some degree of control of, and representation because matter is slow to respond… but an avatar is different. With an avatar, it might even be the case that I am not in control of how I appear to others at all. They could shape me however they want, like applying a filter to your hideous boyfriend.
Attraction
I forget what I was watching, but this discussion came up. Someone was saying “attractive” in Korean, and the person who didn’t understand Korean was trying understand the word sense that was being used in that translation. Basically they were inferring that “attractive” as in “pleasing to the senses” was different than the sense of “objects being pulled toward you.”
But there’s such a poetic link here, particularly with the feeling of attraction. I suppose not as a rule (as one might be conditioned to guard against an attractive person, but generally it isn’t a repulsive feeling.)
Perhaps these aliens who are attractive will take on multiple mates, and that accumulation of differences will be what makes them attractive. A literal gravity of beings.
Thought of you
There’s a dance animation that I, and many, come back to called “Thought of You” By Ryan Woodward. I was watching it again, and the sequel and realized there are elements of transformation throughout.
Maybe this is the way the shapeshifters will love, through dance and transformation. They’ll be an artistic flux.