Pluralwiki: Soulbonding (the term)

[lb_lee]

This is kinda a big expansion of our old tumblr post, A Very Brief Sloppy History of Soulbonding.  We wanted to expand it and make something proper out of it! ^_^

"If you write enough and you love what you're writing, sometimes the characters will take over and seem both real and very important to you. It's apparently a common thing. Being a bunch of confused teenagers, we labeled this phenomenon 'soulbonding'" (Scully Raincrystal, 2006 February 22).

This can range from a sense of characters having their own voice, to a person from fiction becoming a fronting system member who engages in daily life. Soulbonders may cover the full plural/singlet spectrum.

Quick Details

Created By: Amanda Flowers in the JFW mailing list
Time Created: probably 1996, definitely before 1998-12-29
Location Used: Widespread--Livejournal, tumblr, websites

 

Circumstances of Creation

According to Riesz of Eclective: "Amanda Flowers, a member of the JFW [Just For Writers mailing list], coined the term 'SoulBonding', and I believe that in one discussion relating to the subject, she said that the inspiration for the term being capitalized like that was the title of the RPG 'SoulBlazer'. Basically, she just thought it looked cool" (2001, December 26). Over time, the mid-word capitalization was dropped. Lyn/Kurai supports both assertions (2000 October 27 and 2001 March 9).

While the coiner is clear, the exact date is not. Musesong says 1996 (2002, March 15), but offers no proper source or citation. Amorpha, who were members of JFW, say, "We met someone in the jfw in 1996 who said she used it to describe the characters in her head, and had coined it independently sometime prior to this. That' [sic] probably the closet anyone can get to an exact date. [...] the 1996 date is the earliest we can point to with certainty" (private communication, 2019/03/17). Due to JFW's nature as a private mailing list, the exact date is probably impossible to recover at this point.

The first for-certain, ironclad, still-extant citations of the term's existence is 1998-12-29, when Lyn discuses moving a pre-existing SB page to her new domain.

Spread and Popularity

The JFW, being a private mailing list of friends, didn't spread the term. That seems to have happened through the work of Kurai's "thelist" of soulbonders with links to their websites and emails (2000, December 7), which lasted until 2003, and then picked up by Nichole at illvision through 2005, who also took oral histories from soulbonders as to their experiences.

Laura Gilkey also may have helped spread the term, with her story "The Trinity," which she posted on Fictionpress (2002). In that year, the Livejournal soulbonding community was created (soulbonding, 2009 January 1), and Pavilion Hall also had a selection of essays devoted to the topic, written from 2001 to 2002 (n.d.), showing the term's spread.

Perversely, mockery groups such as Fandom Wank may have also helped spread word of the term, using such stories like Snape Wives on An Astral Plane (narcissam, 2006 October 22). These came later, though.

Citations

Eclective [Riesz]. (2001, June 26). inner voices [web page]. http://childofmana.tripod.com/soulbonding.htm Internet Archive. Retrieved 2019/03/17 from https://web.archive.org/web/20010626050616/http://childofmana.tripod.com:80/soulbonding.htm

Eclective. [Riesz of]. (2001, December 26). soulbonding faq [web page]. http://childofmana.tripod.com/soulbondingfaq.htm Internet Archive. Retrieved 2019/03/17 from https://web.archive.org/web/20011226155411/http://childofmana.tripod.com/soulbondingfaq.htm

Gilkey, Laura. (2002). The Trinity [Fictionpress story]. Retrieved 2019/04/18 from https://www.fictionpress.com/s/735472/1/The-Trinity

Lyn. (1998, December 29). old news [web page] http://saucybard.com/lyn/oldoldnew.html Internet Archive. Retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/19991204071858/http://saucybard.com/lyn/oldoldnew.html

Lyn. (2000, October 27). this page is fluffy, isn't it? I think it is... [web page] http://kurai.com/sb/main.html Internet Archive. Retrieved 2019/04/18 from https://web.archive.org/web/20001027191104/http://kurai.com/sb/main.html

Lyn. (2000, October 27). metatron is one of my newest peeps! XD; [web page] http://kurai.com/sb/main.html Internet Archive. Retrieved 2019/04/18 https://web.archive.org/web/20010309215841/http://kurai.com/sb/main.html

Lyn. (2000, December 7). thelist [web page]. http://kurai.com:80/sb/list.html Internet Archive. Retrieved 2019/4/18 from https://web.archive.org/web/20001207213700/http://kurai.com:80/sb/list.html

Musesong. (2002, March 15). "SoulBonding Stuff" [insanejournal post]. Retrieved 2019/03/17 from http://musesong.insanejournal.com/1968.html

narcissam. (2006, October 22). "Severus, come to me/ Be the light for me/ So I can see/ Life's beauty/ Guide me to destiny." [Fandom Wank Journalfen post] http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/1015949.html Internet Archive. Retrieved 2019/04/18 from https://web.archive.org/web/20071213013651/http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/1015949.html

Nichole. (2005, December 4). The SoulBonding Database [web page]. http://illvision.net/sbdata/data.html Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20051224195837/http://illvision.net/sbdata/data.html

Pavilion Hall. (n.d.) Pavilion: Library: Soulbonding [web page]. Retrieved from http://www.karitas.net/pavilion/library/library_sb.html

Scully Raincrystal. (2006, February 22). Soulbonding [web page]. http://www.seiryuu.org/~raincrystal/soulbonding/ Internet Archive. Retrieved 2019/03/15 from https://web.archive.org/web/20060222091626/http://www.seiryuu.org/~raincrystal/soulbonding/

soulbonding. (2009, January 1). Profile [Livejournal Page]. http://community.livejournal.com/soulbonding/profile Internet Archive. Retrieved 2019/03/15 from https://web.archive.org/web/20090101072848/http://community.livejournal.com:80/soulbonding/profile