Soulbonding

The soulbonding symbol proposed by tumblr user scatterbrainedadventurelog

Soulbonding (sometimes stylized as SoulBonding) is the act or experience of forming a mental connection with a fictional entity. These fictional entities are called soulbonds, muses, or living characters, and a person who has soulbonds is called a soulbonder. Soulbonds usually take form in one's mindscape or head as an autonomous entity, and may have a permanent presence here, return to their world occasionally, or be permanently present in their world with a mental link to their soulbonder. Soulbonding is usually considered a subtype of plurality, although many soulbonders do not consider themselves plural. Many people soulbond with their own original characters, and the experience is common for authors, writers, and roleplayers. However, any kind of fictional character can be a soulbond.

The soulbonding community is known for popularizing the term fictive among plural systems.

Experiences

Soulbonding was described as a character "[coming] to life" in a soulbonder's mind on the soulbonding website The Living Library. Soulbonders who write or roleplay may feel that their characters have a will of their own. Soulbonders may feel fictional characters inhabiting their body with them, feel as if they 'channel' them, or know details about certain characters that were not stated in their source material. Soulbonders may mentally hear their soulbonds speak or be able to sense their emotions.

Soulbonding may be done intentionally or unintentionally. Forming a soulbond may involve focusing on their source material and ruminating on what they would do in certain situations until they respond. Their voice will likely be faint, but continuing to communicate with them can strengthen the connection. People may intentionally soulbond for connections like friendships or romantic relationships, for wisdom or comfort, to have someone to bounce ideas off of, or because of their special interest or hyperfixation on their soulbond's source material.

Soulbonds vary in their presence in their soulbonder's life. This variation is generally separated into three main categories of permanent residents, day trippers, and internal cellphones. Permanent residents are permanent headmates, while day trippers can move between their original worlds and their soulbonder's mind. Soulbonds with internal cellphones never enter this world or their soulbonder's body, but are able to mentally communicate with them from their own world like they have a phone connection in their head. In the Just for Writers mailing list where the term soulbonding was coined, temporary soulbonds were called tar'morende and permanent ones were called dar'morende. Soulbonds of a soulbonder's original character are called insourced, and soulbonds from other pieces of media are considered outsourced.

Any theories of origin can be applied to soulbonding. Swiftpaw states that the community goes through phases of spiritual or psychological origins being most prominent. They believe most soulbonders believe in spiritual theories of origin as of 2024.

A phenomenon known as BodyBrothers originated from soulbonding in which a person has a connection with a real person. Fictive Kin did not consider their BodyBrothers to be from alternate realities instead of being real people from this world. Most information on BodyBrothers has been lost to time; however, some soulbonds consider themselves to be fictionalized versions of historical figures like Shakespeare.

History

Authors have reported experiences similar to soulbonding before the community was founded and independently of it since its creation. The term itself was created in 1998 by Amanda Flowers on the Just for Writers mailing list to describe what she and other members of the group were experiencing. The soulbonding community quickly grew, with many websites and forums being created in the early 2000s. Gradually, the soulbonding community was subsumed by the wider plural community, with many of these websites being shut down in the 2010s.

In their 2024 panel at OtherCon, Swiftpaw stated they wanted soulbonding communities to reemerge.

Outside the community

Many creatives have experiences similar to soulbonding with their characters, including Enid Blyton, Jim Davis, E. M. Foster, Robert E. Howard, Leonard Nimoy, Philip Pullman, and Edith Wharton. This experience has been studied multiple times, with one study finding that out of the authors surveyed:

• 20% sometimes sense their characters in the room with them
• 13% experienced their characters having full agency from the start
• 27% experienced their characters developing agency only after a certain amount of development
• 22% experienced their characters having agency sometimes, but not always

Another study reported that 63% of those surveyed mentally hear their characters speak when writing and 61% said their characters could act independently. 15% could have a conversation with their characters.

Symbols

The soulbonding flag created by tumblr user vesiamor

Users on the SoulBond Sanctuary forum discussed possible soulbonding symbols in 2001. One of their main ideas was a tree with its roots planted in a heart, but the symbol fell out of use. Later, another symbol for soulbonding was created and proposed by tumblr user scatterbrainedadventurelog, featuring an eye with a venn diagram in its pupil. They intended for the venn diagram to represent the overlap of the soulbond and soulbonder residing in the same body and for the eye to represent a view into a shared inner world or a multiverse.

Lunar Solstice's soulbonding rings

tumblr user vesiamor created a soulbonding flag originally intended to be exclusively for spiritual soulbonding but later altered to include all theories of origin. He describes the meanings of the stripes as:

• Red: the energy to summon a soulbond, whether voluntary or involuntary
• Orange: the spectrum of relationships between a soulbond and their soulbonder, such as romantic or platonic
• Beige: unity between a soulbonder and their soulbonds, as well as variance in soulbonding experiences
• Purple: the forces that bring a soulbonder and their soulbonds together, originally described in a metaphysical context
• Dark blue: the travel across space and time that soulbonding can facilitate

Partially inspired by the soulbonding flag, Lunar Solstice created another soulbonding symbol because they felt the original eye symbol lacked uniqueness. The two small rings represent the soulbond and soulbonder, with the large ring symbolizing their connection. They created a second version featuring hearts instead of dots inside of the rings to represent romance between soulbonds and soulbonders.