#he's Literally doomed and destined to die and whatnot

[thegreatyin]

CAERU IS DOING WHAT

Oh, you didn't know?

Caeru's actual purpose as an alt account is to Seek The Name!! AKA the infamous Fallen London storyline that permanently and irrecoverably bricks your account forever upon completion!!!!

It's a whole thing.

He's 2/7 candles into it and everything :)

[lytefoot]

Soulmates ™ for the trope thing?

No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know |

Okay. So I used to loooove Soulmates(tm) as a trope. Like, you meet that One Special Person and you are Magically Perfectly Bonded to them and you’re just gonna have to form a loving romantic relationship and there’s just no other option! It was so romantic.

And... then I turned sixteen, started reading something other than Heralds of Valdemar, and actually had a romantic relationship with another human... (Though to be fair, even Heralds of Valdemar got thoroughly tired of the idea of soulmates(tm) after a few series. I remember how mad I got when one of the characters! actually complained! about how arbitrary the whole thing was!)

The thing I hate most about the whole Soulmates(tm) idea is the notion that, like, there’s Only One Person who has your same identical funky birthmark or whatnot and is thus your One True Partner and the Other Half Of Your Soul. Why do I hate the idea?

If this current relationship isn’t Perfect, it’s not good and worth cultivating.

This relationship is The One tho! Why won’t Other Person just understand that they’re my soulmate and we are destined to be together! I must keep pursuing them forever!

And, what if this is The One but you break up with them and then you’re Forever Alone(tm), doomed forever to be only half a soul! Better stay in this toxic relationship just in case!

Oh, but what if they’re soulmates(tm)! You just can’t have a moral standard that certain relationships just can’t turn into romance, because what if they’re soulmates(tm)! Teacher/student is the one of these I tend to get most offended about--I’m sorry, if someone has ever been my student, they are Permanently Off Limits for a romantic relationship. Cheating is another one--okay, I messed up and got into a committed relationship with someone who wasn’t The One, but now I met my soulmate(tm) I must cheat! And it’s so often used as a way to make grooming a-ok! He’s not creepily grooming her until she’s of age, it’s just that they’re soulmates(tm)! So he’ll wait! That way it’s not creepy! Not looking at any series about vampires in particular here.

Don’t even get me started about what that says has to happen if your partner dies! Like, if your partner dies and they were your soulmate(tm), you’re doomed to Mourn Forever! Or, if you fall in love with someone else, that must mean the first person WASN’T your soulmate(tm)! So that was never real--enjoy! (Or there’s got to be some creepy age-difference stuff that’s excused by the second person being the literal reincarnation of the first person... thanks, Heralds of Valdemar, why did I ever think that was romantic?)

The entire notion that someone who isn’t in a romantic relationship only has part of a soul can die in a fire, honestly.

Now, I think it’s cute when people say, “We’re soulmates!” to mean something like, “We get along really well, we want the same things out of life, and we make each other feel fulfilled.” I sometimes write about Harry and Ginny being soulmates in that sense, because it’s a really charming phrasing.

And... the trope where, like, you’ve got your soulmate’s name tattooed somewhere on your body, or you’ve got an identical tattoo, or something like that? That’s actually kind of fun, and I guess you can do fun stuff with that. I don’t really fault that kind of soulmate AU, though it’s not really my thing.

Though it’s honestly more fun to see the soulmate-mark stuff subverted: like, I never met my soulmate, and neither did you, but we really like each other. Let’s fake having the proper birthmarks and then we’ll be allowed to get married. And then it turns out that’s what almost everyone has done exactly the same thing...

I guess it can be okay in fiction, as long as everyone acknowledges that it’s not real?