I have never written soulbounding, telepathy, or telepathic soulbounding. (Well, there's this one (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1080301), which is sort of telepathy? But feelings instead of words.) I'm a pretty big fan of the soulbond AUs where everyone is born with a soulbond, which they can feel or they have a mark on their wrist or words on their back or whatever, and then they have to find one another. But those stories tend to be, hmmm, a bit simplistic. Which sometimes is what you want! Sometimes we all want chocolate ice cream instead of healthy food. But the typical soulbond AU doesn't have any room for loving more than one person – I don't mean in a poly way, but just in a "people change over time" way. I find the idea of soul-mates in general kind of creepy in real life; I don't like the narrative that "there's one person for you out there" as opposed to "there are many people you are or could be compatible with and all relationships will mean compromise and work". And so a soulbound universe where the "one person" thing is actually true, and like, enforceable by nature, is scary if I take it seriously. Fire's Stone in interesting because it's a) not innate to the characters, it's something that's put on them for plot reasons, and b) they still have to work to understand each other. But at that point it's a lot less trope-y. It's sort of like the mental version of "we're stuck handcuffed together"! Though actually I love "we're stuck handcuffed together", so that works out.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2014-09-10 03:12 am (UTC)I have never written soulbounding, telepathy, or telepathic soulbounding. (Well, there's this one (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1080301), which is sort of telepathy? But feelings instead of words.) I'm a pretty big fan of the soulbond AUs where everyone is born with a soulbond, which they can feel or they have a mark on their wrist or words on their back or whatever, and then they have to find one another. But those stories tend to be, hmmm, a bit simplistic. Which sometimes is what you want! Sometimes we all want chocolate ice cream instead of healthy food. But the typical soulbond AU doesn't have any room for loving more than one person – I don't mean in a poly way, but just in a "people change over time" way. I find the idea of soul-mates in general kind of creepy in real life; I don't like the narrative that "there's one person for you out there" as opposed to "there are many people you are or could be compatible with and all relationships will mean compromise and work". And so a soulbound universe where the "one person" thing is actually true, and like, enforceable by nature, is scary if I take it seriously. Fire's Stone in interesting because it's a) not innate to the characters, it's something that's put on them for plot reasons, and b) they still have to work to understand each other. But at that point it's a lot less trope-y. It's sort of like the mental version of "we're stuck handcuffed together"! Though actually I love "we're stuck handcuffed together", so that works out.