The Darker Side of Soulmates

[ffutures]

This post by autopope is an interesting discussion of vampires and parasitology. Some of the comments made me realise that the sort of behaviour shown in a lot of "Soulmate/Soulmark" fanfic AU stories corresponds very well with parasitic infection; the host carries a parasite that needs to mate with another of its own kind (let's say there are ten different types for the sake of argument, that most people are born infected, that the first parasite into a human host stops any other parasite from taking over except under special circumstances such as the death of the first parasite, and that they can only reproduce once or twice). They obviously need to attract another person carrying the same parasite; one way to do it might be to have the bearers born with marks which show which parasite they're carrying, and attract other humans with the same infection - and yes, the parasite is to an extent controlling the host's behaviour by e.g. releasing endorphins an/or pheromones when a suitable mate is near, pumping up the output of chemicals considerably when mating seems likely.

The end result is that you get people born with weird marks who are programmed to "fall in love" with someone whose marks correspond. To make it more confusing the marks might look very different to humans than to their parasites, so that it looks like there are thousands of different soulmarks when the truth is that only a couple of key features (e.g. the precise colour, length, key angles) are relevant to the parasite, the rest is just random.

You can't quite get to the silliest end of soulmark fiction - people born with the first words their true love says to them pre-tattooed on their skin - from this premise, but you can come disturbingly close.

Comments

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Any time I hear "soulmate", I just refer to xkcd.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Me too, but it's a trope that seems to be very prevalent in some fandoms, e.g. Marvel cinematic universe. I've parodied it a little here (http://archiveofourown.org/works/3334724/chapters/7292075) but an enormous amount of tosh is being churned out by some writers.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

There's one particular recent Captain America/Iron Man fic that uses the 'last words your soulmate says to you' in the very best subversive fanfic fashion in that, as the author puts it, "in 616 canon Steve and Tony die a lot"

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Haven't come across that one - do you have a link to it?

I'm quite enjoying Unmarked (http://archiveofourown.org/works/3315230) which is an Avengers / Cthulhu Maythos crossover soulmarks AU, and I suspect that the real explanation of soulmarks, when it comes, will be VERY nasty.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

'Do It Over' by Sineala

http://archiveofourown.org/works/3777091

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[eledonecirrhosa.livejournal.com]

Biologically speaking, surely the parasites would want to outbreed rather than inbreed? So the soulmark becomes "anything except THOSE ones". :-)

The idea that there is only one "twu wuv" partner for someone is biologically bonkers. What happens if that One True Love is born in Australia and you are a species that hasn't invented aeroplanes or sailing ships? What happens if the One True Love gets eaten by a lion before you meet them.

Saw an interesting research paper once on "scramble competition" - the race for everyone in a monogamous species to pair up at the start of the breeding season. Rather than doing speed dating with the whole population to find your ideal mate, the animals looked over 2 or 3 and picked the best of that tiny sample. It wasn't worth the wasted effort to check out the rest.

Animal mating systems - it's all cost-benefits analysis not love! :-)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

No argument here - everything about the soulmark / predestined soulmate ideas is deeply flawed. See this article:

http://what-if.xkcd.com/9/

and this song

http://youtu.be/Gaid72fqzNE