Soulbonding Ideas from Laura Gilkey, 2002

[lb_lee]

While digging through the archive of Laura Gilkey's website, ShiningHalf.com, I found some cool thoughts from her on soulbonding ^{(definition here)} back in 2002!

For those not familiar with her, Gilkey is in the pluralstories catalog for her soulbonding short story, The Trinity, and her poem on the subjective experience of soulbonding, Who I Am. She also made five comic strips about soulbonding, entitled 7 Wonders of My World, but it is sadly lost media.

I've already mentioned in a previous post how, in May 2002, Laura Gilkey coined the term "outsource" to refer to “the SBing of characters that the SBer did not create.” (Example: Bugs Bunny) In that same entry, she also talks about being multiple vs. plural:

Often it is suggested---and I essentially agree---that Soulbonding and Multiplicity are points along a common spectrum, which let's call "Plurality of Identity." It has been pointed out, and well so, that some Plurality of Identity is healthy, indeed I believe necessary for health. [...] [H]igher on the Plurality scale, yet still within the healthy range, one finds Soulbonding and Multiplicity---my own SBing is nowhere near Multiplicity area, but I have known fellow SBers who came quite close. If I had to draw a line of distinction, I personally would place it at "fronting." From what I've seen, by and large Soulbonds usually don't control their bonder's body, where Multiples share control.^{Footnote digression}

I also found her September pondering about fictional characters as templates really insightful:

I've long believed that characters are "in the eye of the beholder," so to speak, that a fictional character is not a single entity, but rather a template, from which everyone who writes fanfiction, or even who watches/reads the source material creates their own unique version, whether they realize it or not.

In this way, I think of characters as rather like [dolls from a specific company]. The [...] designs were originally sculpted by an artist, Akihiro Enku, just as a fictional character is originally "sculpted" by their author[...]. The process of the artist and their assistants, studio, publisher, and others translating that vision into prose, images, etc. is like the process of [the doll company] taking a mold from the original sculpture, and every [doll] owner gets not the original sculpture, but a copy from the mold. None of these copies, however, are exactly like the original. [...] as an author I can attest that in the process of translating a character from concept to concrete, some compromises must always be made. No medium is so responsive, no artist so skilled, that every aspect of their idea will make it into expression.

And then comes the customizing. [...] While it's not openly supported as in the case of [custom dolls], I think a similar kind of thing happens when people write fanfiction about fictional characters. Whether they admit it or not, they will necessarily make their own subtle changes as the character acts out the fan-author's understanding of them. Some fan-authors like me acknowledge this freedom as well; I found out lately that I "sprung for optional eyes" on one of my Soulbonds. Someone e-mailed me to inform me that Alucard has amber eyes. The Alucard I know and write about has pale silver-blue eyes; he has for years.

This idea seems to vault over a lot of unnecessary teeth-gnashing over the idea of "doubles," or who is "the REAL so-and-so." I like how it explains the common phenomenon of folks with soulbonds of ostensibly the same character, who are nevertheless their own individual people and thus different from each other. Instead of that becoming a source of existential angst, it can be a celebration of individuality!

Soulbonding is a term (and subculture) for when a fictional character takes on an independent life to its creator or audience. In Gilkey's own words, "Have you ever read a book, seen a movie, watched a TV show, etc., and encountered a character who just struck a chord with you? Have you ever cared so deeply and become so involved in such a character that you started realizing how your world would look through their eyes, and if you tried to imagine it, you could hear their voice in your mind, and the stories of their lives play over and over in your head? If you have, then you know what it's like to be a Soulbonder."

Footnote digression: In May 2002, Pavilion Hall didn't exist yet (that was June), so Gilkey couldn't have gotten the plural spectrum idea from them. Vicki(s)' website, the Wonderful World of the Midcontinuum, did exist at this time, but Gilkey doesn't mention her or the midcont term, so it seems unlikely. Even Riesz Fenrir and Daidouji Tomoyo of the Eclective's post on the relationship between soulbonding, multiplicity, and midcont stuff, clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right, didn't come out until after this, on July 8, 2002.

Seeing how the plural spectrum idea seems to have cropped up in both multi and SB places around this time, the idea was clearly getting traction around SOMEWHERE, but I'm not entirely sure where. It doesn't seem to have been the old LJ-multiplicity comm, I checked the archive (and this kinda predated the two cultures blending much), and the LJ-soulbonding comm has been purged, and what remaining archives don't show anything that stands out. It's quite possible it was in one of the lost soulbonding hangouts, the Sword and Serpent Tavern Soulbond Sanctuary or something.

Gilkey, Laura. (1998?, 2002). the Trinity [story]. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20030411071709/http://www.shininghalf.com/liteside/trinity.html
or https://www.fictionpress.com/s/735472/1/The-Trinity

Gilkey, Laura. (2001-2009). Welcome to ShiningHalf.com! http://www.shininghalf.com Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.shininghalf.com*

Gilkey, Laura. (2001-2004). Soulbonding. http://www.shininghalf.com:80/soulbond.html Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20041221200347/http://www.shininghalf.com:80/soulbond.html

Gilkey, Laura. (2002). Who I Am [poem]. http://shininghalf.com/liteside/who.html Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20030117075620/http://shininghalf.com/liteside/who.html

Gilkey, Laura. (2002, May). ~Ramblings on Soulbonding~ [blog post] http://www.shininghalf.com:80/ithink2.html Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20041229121933/http://www.shininghalf.com:80/ithink2.html

Gilkey, Laura. (2002, September 30). ~The View from 11 1/2 Inches~ [blog post] http://www.shininghalf.com:80/ithink2.html Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20041229121933/http://www.shininghalf.com:80/ithink2.html

Comments

[nightforest]

Ooh, thank you for sharing these! I very much agree with her "in the eye of the beholder" thoughts about characters, when it comes to both bonds and fandom.

If I had to draw a line of distinction, I personally would place it at "fronting." From what I've seen, by and large Soulbonds usually don't control their bonder's body, where Multiples share control.
This is fascinating because I definitely agree that soulbonding and multiplicity are on a spectrum of plurality, but I wouldn't draw the line at fronting. I think I'd have to draw the line somewhere much more annoyingly nebulous, like "is the body shared in a philosophical sense?" Because my body is considered very much mine, but my headmates can and do front, sometimes to help me out and sometimes just for fun. Similarly, the meatspace life is primarily mine and bonds can have entire, rich lives in Night Forest without ever fronting, though I do often choose to share meatspace life/time with them and many have formed relationships outside of our headspace. And several other soulbonders I know are in similar situations with their headmates.

Anyway! Interesting stuff. I love thinking about and discussing it.

~Elle

(editing because I remembered I had an even more apropos icon lol)

[lb_lee]

It’s really cool comparing where people draw the line! Like, I don’t know where we draw ours anymore; we kinda call it all multi and many-selved even though nobody else does and we’re probably wrong. We just do our best to follow what others tell us (even though we fail at times).

For us, there’s such a gradual flow of “story person who’s never been here but knows someone who is” to “story person who comes here but doesn’t front” to “story person fronts” to “how did we live before Biff took over house tasks?!” They aren’t discrete categories! People can and do move from one category to the other!

[nightforest]

we kinda call it all multi and many-selved even though nobody else does and we’re probably wrong
See, I love that too, though! I love defying specific categorization. And I think umbrella labels are so important and useful. Queer is an incredibly helpful label for me so I don't have to go on a two-minute explanation which would largely be about how I'm not even sure about parts of it and feel like an imposter for other parts. And it's the same for "plural" (or "many-selved" or whatever); easier to say that than "well I'm a soulbonder but people do front and actually with at least one headmate we do brush up against multiplicity maybe kinda..."

Identity is fucking weird. XD

~Elle

[lb_lee]

IDENTITY IS SO FUCKING WEIRD, ELLE!

We have an old photo book called Assume Nothing, which is just of people being their gendery selves, and when we have to describe it to others, we call it "genderful," a word we just made up because none of the people in the book have a "normal" gender by white American standard, but calling it "trans" would give a much more limited impression than what it is. (Since the book includes drag performers, a fa'afafine, a sistergirl, an intersex person, and other people who ostensibly should count under the trans umbrella, but in practice there are huge fights about it and so they rarely get discussed.) Assume Nothing just sidesteps the whole thing and doesn't once try to pin down a unifying theme; it just lets the viewer figure it out. That refusal to pigeonhole is why we've had it all these years.

[talewisefellowship]

[Hikaru]

Soulbond really is one of those words where if it weren't for the history, and how other people used it, and when the fellowship really started to get together cus we got together after it got less popular, we might have used it.

But because of how other people use it it doesn't fit all that well so we have to give it up for much of the same reasons as we gave up fictive.

Like that whole template thing, we have a theory that does a lot of the same work, but with entirely different framing and language. The way we think of it, the story is not a world in itself, it is a window onto a group of related timelines where the events actually occurred (more or less), and different ppl are going to see different timelines (maybe even more than one!) depending on how they read the story. I come from one of those timelines. And when people write a story for the first time, they're opening up a window by imagining those people. And they didn't create the timeline or the people in it, the timeline has always been there and will always be there.

That's how I think of it at least. That's not a complete and accurate description of the theory but is my attempt to briefly explain it.

[lb_lee]

It makes sense! It's my hope there's room for both philosophies, depending on the folks involved!

I know we've mentioned to you how story for us seems to be an overlapping of different worlds that otherwise remain separate. We're still figuring out our whole business!

[talewisefellowship]

[Hikaru]

Yea I agree!!!