bakerstreet | you have a body. you are a soul.

[Eternally here for the Pleasantville style AU where the world is black and white and gradually fills with color, but I'm also open to other options and/or combining a couple. Platonic soulmates are also A+.]

[ portia is f/femme leaning but ota soulmates ♥ ]

[ info. favourites are:

whenever you lose an item, it ends up in your soulmates’ possession somehow.
once you’re an adult, you get kicked out of the house until you find your soulmate.
can meet soulmate any time in a shared mind space.
everyone gets a list of their soulmate’s worst qualities.

historally-inspired fantasy settings preferred. no smut. ]

[These are a few that I liked, but I'm open to other prompts too :)

Everyone gets little books of what people think about their soulmate (but never said out loud)
Whenever you lose an item, it ends up in your soulmates’ possession somehow
Every year, you receive a puzzle piece. The whole picture is your soulmate’s name/appearance/location/etc. ]

[The tales made it sound so perfect, a climatic encounter where eyes meet and colour floods into vision and music plays in your head from theirs and it's all very charming and softly lit. He'd expected that, even if his father had gone to lengths to say that's not how it works in real life. Why wouldn't it be some fated meeting at a ball, hands brushing over each other and smiles coy, even as they saw things as they truly were for the first time?

Then, at 17, he'd given up all hope of a meet-cute at a ball. The noble life's not for him, and...

And maybe soulmates aren't either. He's not really sure anymore, with how life's turned out. Almost glad for the reprieve from such thoughts, with how Mizora's always sending him hither and thither for her amusement, and how the Coast's always so demanding of his attention otherwise. Then Karlach had happened, the nautiloid, and a soulmate's the furthest thing from his mind when he crawls into Emerald Grove to offer his martial services against goblin attack. Just what he needs until he gets enough intel to find Karlach again; mindless goblin slaughter, protecting the smallfolk, moral-free work.

It's weird, perhaps, that he's humming a song he's sure he's never heard when they attack. A tune he doesn't recognise as he leaps nimbly from rock to rock, rapier at the ready and a witty one-liner forming in his mind. That's fine. But when he looks over at the group of adventurers coming from the shore's direction, that's when he almost stumbles, nearly eats complete shit instead of impaling a goblin. Something's different. He just can't tell what, yet.]

[ With every step taken and the occasional book read, Somber has been able to refresh some parts of his fragmented mind on the ins and outs of the world. The memories associated with them are fuzzy; the stories and songs come to him almost effortlessly when the most miniscule thing can trigger it, like the rhythm of leaves crunching beneath his boots. He's only recently discovered his gift for music, singing a few words before the rest of the verse comes to him, much to the amusement to his current companions. It's unusual for him too, especially when the songs don't completely escape his mind. Sure, one of the stories tell about soulmates finding each other through song but the truth behind it is easily shrugged off by Somber when other matters are at hand. The tadpole, for one thing.

The song is just another kind of worm stuck in his head, along with these violent impulses that he doesn't quite understand yet. Perhaps it's a traumatic head injury. He lets it out in full when they defeat the goblins, with Somber outright eviscerating some and getting an unexplainable thrill from it all. Heat of the battle, maybe. (He's in agreement with Shadowheart when she suggested seeing a healer. Nothing about him seems...right.) It ends with him putting all his weight into driving his dagger into one's throat, almost just to see how deep he can get that blade in. He locks eyes with the Wyll the moment he looks up, smirking like a happy predator, humming. It's only brief before he blinks and his expression is focused again when the gate finally opens for them.

That healthy punch Somber gives to that ass of a human is almost as cathartic as killing off those goblins. His group is caught up to speed to the tieflings' situation as they make their way deeper into the Hollow. Dire as the situation seems, Somber can't help but continue to hum and quietly sing to himself as they make their way deeper in. Eventually, he lets them split off...because even he's starting to sound a tad annoyed at his own singing.

He decides to make the most out of the day by exploring more himself before returning to the camp they had set up, eventually coming across the man from earlier training the children to fight. He watches Wyll speak gently to the child that gives him more than enough of an impression that this is a good man he's looking at. Good, handsome, and not to mention dashing. He's intrigued and even help to bolster the childrens' morale with his own encouragement. The area seems to be flooded with a warmth that Somber can only describe to resemble a sunrise but he keeps that to himself. He'd rub his eyes if they weren't covered in blood.

They meet, they exchange names and tadpole connections - something that Somber has come to accept that it may be more of a common thing than it ought to be. It's a lot going on at once; the survival of these refugees, Wyll's mission to find this Karlach, their own predicament...

The bard may look a bit spaced out as he considers things and the blood all over him probably doesn't help with that image, but he is noticing a shift in the colors he sees. ]

Quick question before we head off, Wyll. Um. [ He's not of mind to think about tales or songs, despite not realizing how he's tapping his foot to the gentle rhythm to a known love ballad. ~~failed insight?? check i guess~~ This has to be some traumatic head injury. ] You didn't happen to hit your head real hard or anything like that when the nautiloid crashed, did you? [ Somber reaches the back of his head, where he winces from a phantom pain leftover from...what he assumes is an injury he received when he was kidnapped by the mind flayers. The others don't seem to suffer the same ailment other than the tadpole so part of him is already aware of what Wyll's answer is going to be. ]

I'm seeing colors that shouldn't be there.

Edited 2024-01-11 10:06 (UTC)

[The humming's one thing. He's always been a dreamer, and maybe the tadpole's unlocked some latent musical talent in him or something? Easy to dismiss, either way. But the colours.

The colours. He'd stared after Somber for a moment that first time, struck both by the true shade of blood, changing as it dried on his skin, and by the fact that someone could have such beautiful eyes of completely differing colours. It's still striking him, even as he tries to run through drills with Umi, tries to keep his shit together for the sake of the children. Can't let them see that he's anything less than the storied hero, else they'll never listen to him.

Then Somber (what a name, he wants to make jokes but he's afraid of connecting himself too much even as they lash themselves together a little more) comes over and throws him off. Probably for the best that he's about to get distracted; nothing good's coming of letting himself think at length like this, and Wyll knows that surely his lingering gaze must sit heavy on Somber, surely there's no way his awkward staring's been missed--

ah]

Not that I'm aware of, I'm afraid. [He swallows thickly, brows raised and expression unknowingly plaintive.] ...Though I'm suffering from the same affliction, so perhaps it's not blunt force trauma so much as our tadpoles agreeing with their new homes more than the others'?

It's fascinating, either way. I-- I can't find it in me to complain.

Hm. [ Wyll's info gets his mind jogging - which hurts to think about, having to sort through all of these experiences and symptoms and sorting the commonalities from the unique ones. They all had been pretty upfront with their tadpole symptoms and none have mentioned anything about seeing colors. It occurs to him then that his affinity for music and dance is coming back to him not just as a talent, but the joy that he once associated with it.

It's because of Wyll?

He's learning more about himself as much as others are getting to know him, for better or worse. At least realizing that he enjoys dismantling rigid authority figures (or in this case, a famous hero) isn't the worst quality he has. The smirk the bard gives him almost looks wicked especially with the blood splatter, but there's a noticeable softness to it. So that's what it is. He might not have found the answers to all of his questions, but...

As their eyes meet again, his gaze softens briefly as though the latter is truly the first real good thing he's encountered since he escaped that pod. This may be Somber's first genuine smile in what feels like a long, long time. ] You know what? No complaints from me either.

[ Surely Wyll has realized it, if he's reading his body language right. With his hands on his hips, he gives the human a once over as his eyes trail up to meet his gaze again. ]

I like what I'm seeing.

[ota, gen is loved.]

[ reincarnation is a thing in her canon, but feel free to hmu with other ideas! m/f or f/f ♥ ]

Canon and crosscanon welcome, but she's 48 so a character that is appropriate in age would be good. Gender doesn't matter, she's very bi.

[Open to any prompt but I generated a particularly juicy one by opening the page and I'd love to give it a shot: first time you touch your soulmate you're forced to relive the best and/or worst moment of their lives]

[It's going to be some platonic soulmate stuff going on, probably, unless you're Lorca. She can be Drastic Measures timeframe or AU'd forward into Discovery proper.

Voicetesting.]

Edited 2024-01-10 14:01 (UTC)

( ota; platonic soulmates are 👌 open to other prompts as well.

1. Everyone is born knowing their soulmate’s (future) biggest secret.
2. It is impossible to lie to your destined soulmate.
3. You can send one item to your soulmate every year (or whenever). [ Norton sends nothing; please roast him. ]
4. If you’re having a good/bad day, your soulmate will have the same amount of good/bad day. (Or alternatively, the opposite). [ Feel free to blame him because all his days are generally bad. ] )

[Believing in soulmates was similar to believing in Santa Claus — it was a charming and convenient sentiment, pleasant and useful until it's been outgrown.

Victor sends his first letter on his sixth birthday, because it sounds like a nice idea, and he has no one else to gift anything to for Christmas. He assumes it's Santa Claus who takes it away and delivers it too, so Victor prepares payment in the form of milk and cookies.

The contents are simple, yet unusually linear for his age: "Dear stranger", "Merry Christmas", "It's my birthday today", "I wish mother was here", and... "Will you be my friend?". The penmanship itself is nothing to boast about. He signs it with his name, the biggest word on the page: Victor.

He does not have an address to send it to, but the letter is gone by morning, so he assumes Santa knows what he doesn't. He wonders about a reply for some two weeks, then forgets until the following December.

He never receives a reply, but it does not bother him; every year he performs this self-indulgent ritual, pouring his heart into a neat little paper and sealing it up again, casting it to the wind. He repeats this process long after he's stopped believing in Santa and wishing to see his mother again. In every case, he knows better than to expect a response.

A few times in his youth, he had tried to send goodies along with the letter, in the spirit of Christmas. As the years passed, he worried they would never find their destination and end up going to waste, and so he turned those treats into paper: Enclosed with his letters would be recipes for different breads, biscuits, cookies... Nothing too complicated, but what came to mind as comforts in this cherished time of year. Hopefully his mystery addressee can eat well, be merry, and keep the cold at bay.

The penmanship and contents mature with him, naturally. The script morphs gradually into a smooth and clean cursive, and though his vocabulary improves, he hasn't learned to show restraint in his honesty (it's cathartic, he finds, writing into an eyeless, mouthless void) and this unnamed penpal — unconfirmed to even exist and more or less an imaginary friend at this point — is made witness to his clumsy growth, his reticent school years, his adulthood that brings freedom and further loneliness hand in hand.

The first and only time he sends a letter outside of Christmastime is right before he takes off for the manor. It's a quick goodbye, and a thank you for everything, in case this is the last the world has heard from him. The signature has changed in his older years:

With love,
V.

Bafflingly, he lives to see another Christmas within the manor, and though communication with the outside world is forbidden, he has not discarded his tradition. He reports on his health, but little else about himself; the rest of the letter is spent wishing for the other's wellbeing, and to spend Christmas warmly with loved ones. Surely "Santa" can't reach here anymore, so he can't just wait for it to fall into the wrong hands — perhaps he'll toss it in the fireplace when no one's around.

And yet, like all the other years, the letter on his desk has disappeared by morning. Unlike all the other years, this time, Victor searches for it — starting with gently turning his room over, and once that has failed him, moving out into the commons, scanning for a familiar, unmarked envelope none too discreetly, try though he may.]

[ The concept of a ‘soulmate’ is part of that consumerist propaganda. Norton believed so since his youth, further amplified by his mother’s eventual abandonment and his father’s inevitable passing.

He was 11 upon receiving that first letter, and Norton has steadily learned to stop crying, sheltering his more vulnerable sentiments beneath a veil of hardened indifference. So it was a sight for sore eyes, that inexperienced scrawl of a fellow kid, thoughts recorded with an innocuous simplicity compared to the hubris of the adult world. Norton marveled over the question for longer than he cared to admit, the little confession of longing that he, too, understood despite how those few years kept him busy enough to outrun the grief. Norton had every mind to reply, once upon a time. But his hands are calloused and rough, dirtied with the soot and dust of those mines now. Who could care about some late miner’s son? Not even a stranger would bother with the poor. Victor might turn his back on him, too, just like everybody else has after realizing that he isn’t born from wealth. The first letter finds itself at some dusty, neglected corner of his home, greeting the yearly arrivals in all its dingy glory.

Norton becomes startlingly confused by Victor’s loyalty to this unspoken annual routine with the passing years, the pile steadily increasing with its hazardous mess of ripped envelopes and its pages poking out from their respective openings. He never replies, though with every Christmas Eve, there's something that lightly swelled with expectation in his chest, an emotion that lessened with intensity the more he worked in the mines, the longer he endured the belittlement of his older peers. Some letters go unread for weeks, left untouched upon that lone countertop in his poor excuse of a kitchen. But it was during the quieter nights when he sought a distraction that he offers every word and line the consideration he never provided to anybody else lest he was paid to put up a farce. It’s stupidly bold of Victor to be this candid about his human experience with life. Lucky, Norton thinks, that these letters found themselves with someone as equally silent and alone, who found little value in gossip and small talk over the most inane things.

The recipes earned a more merciful fate, at least, despite how Norton’s initial reaction was to dump them into their assigned corner, never to be thought of again afterward. He tacks those upon his kitchen’s wall as they come, like a reluctant reminder to save as much as he can manage just to give them a try someday (he doesn't get that opportunity, in the end, especially not after a certain incident). The bread at the marketplace felt hard against his teeth, less warm and more tough with how stale they’ve become, unlike the few treats sent years prior by Victor that were unable to satiate, but felt enough in its own little way. Must be skimping out on the quality — it’s what Norton reasons over those scamming vendors than admit to the private camaraderie he has come to feel with every letter that discloses Victor’s more secretive aspects of an equally solitary life.

Out in the sun, evaluating the merit of every ore dug up from the Earth, Norton is no longer a miner, but a prospector under somewhat better working conditions by 28. The supposed final letter meets him then, greeted with more scarred features compared to the previous years. He’s angrier, his thoughts more in a disarray, but Norton regards the letter with uncharacteristic surprise that gradually morphed into something cold and hollowed out upon noting the succinct farewell, the finale of Victor’s one-sided exchange. By the time Norton receives his own invitation to the Oletus manor, he took his oil-wick cap lamp out in the back and set fire to every letter received until they became blackened dust in the wind, a large part of Victor’s life story remaining dormant in the back of his mind like it always has.

Old habits die hard, still. Christmas Eve rolls around and Norton half-expects a year-end review from Victor and his perspective regarding the past 12 months — despite the reality that suggests nothing more than the void of his own making. He had his suspicions months after growing accustomed to their infinite games involving death and its disconcerting revivals, his eyes long since acquainted with that familiar cursive that stems from a more awkward and less graceful origin of a melancholic childhood. Norton never pursued his curiosity beyond staring at the postman’s handwriting whenever Wick hopped onto his little hind legs just to plant his front paws against the prospector’s knees, offering a letter that varied between encouraging immense concentration to convincing levels of hope.

The universe probably thought it hilarious to provide a hint to his faint conjecture by way of a nondescript letter placed politely upon the guest room’s desk on that early Christmas morning. Norton finds himself at the commons, the letter from ‘V’ folded and somewhat crinkled in his back pocket, waiting to be burned to a crisp at the fireplace. That’ll have to wait though, especially now that he was adding the finishing touches to something he’s been jotting down for the past 15 minutes — ]

Hate to break it to you, [ it starts out; no ‘dear’, no ‘to’, no heading to even remotely address someone in particular or indicate who he is. ] but I’m not some pretty lady with loads of money to spare. I can’t even afford whatever you got me those years ago. You’ve been spilling your guts out to some guy who couldn’t even answer one simple question nearly a good decade ago.

[ Norton doesn’t exactly say what he really means, what he has thought to relay when he was still just a kid back then. The gratitude, surplus of apologies, and sympathy has been lost to the turbulence of undisclosed rage of those dark and crowded mines that he has always loathed with something akin to burning — ]

I thought that was the last I was going to hear from you. You know, that letter from months ago. What convinced you to bother again? [ A remnant of some human emotion in exchange for a potential answer. Not that he had much faith in the idea that Victor would respond, much less the letter finding its way to him at all.

Instead of a name, Norton provides something else: the number of his guest room, but backwards, right at the bottom of the page. Along with it is something more faint, an unassuming “By the way, happy birthday”, like it doesn’t want to be discovered at all. ]

... I’d come back later if I were you. It’s gonna get chilly in here. [ This, Norton says to the postman, right as he begins to seal his letter in a plain envelope, just when his fellow survivor wanders in, always in his perpetual silence.

As promised, the prospector rises from his seat from the farthest end of the table just to shove one of the windows open, inviting the winter’s breeze into the once warm dining hall. Typical that everything Norton has ever done is without hesitation. He lets the envelope go and doesn’t bother watching it be whisked away, out of sight and out of mind behind the nearby trees. He isn't sure what the protocol is here, what ritual that ought to be performed to ensure a safe delivery. It'd probably be best if it got stuck between the branches, made into some bird's nest elsewhere though. Norton assumes so as he ruminates over the letter's contents, the afterthought of it being wasteful sitting like a heavy pit in his gut. ]

[ ooc; the mating bond is basically soulmates. down for pretty much anything, including platonic soulmates.

some other ideas:
under a curse until you meet your soulmate.
everyone wears a mask. you finally take it off when you meet the one with your identical mask, your soulmate.
people have a tendency to experience whatever emotions their soulmate have pent up inside them.
you can sense when your soulmate is in distress.
everyone has memories of their soulmate in their past life. ]

you have a body. you are a soul.

Chrissy Cunningham | Stranger Things

Mikleo | Tales of Zestiria | OTA, Sorey preferred

may parker | mcu | ota

leonardo | tmnt 2003 | m/f

ezreal | lol (heartsteel) | m/m

portia devorak | the arcana | ota

cloud strife | final fantasy vii: advent children | ota

ignis scientia | final fantasy xv | ota

augusta hedegaard — original — ota

carmy berzatto / the bear

Sephiroth | FFVII | OTA

gojo satoru | jujutsu kaisen | ota

Nara Shikamaru | Naruto

Hajime Shino | Enstars | OTA

Himeno | Chainsaw Man

kaveh | genshin impact

cheng xiaoshi | link click

for @audioslave

no subject

no subject

the dokis . . .

Zhuzhi-lang | Scum Villain's Self-Saving System | ota

Navia . Genshin Impact . OTA

Li Lianhua | Mysterious Lotus Casebook | m/m

morgan | fgo

hel/geiravor lokisdottir | the prophecies of ragnarok | ota

Maedhros | the silmarillion | ota

Ami Bites-Thumb | Werewolf: The Apocalypse

Jaime Reyes | Blue Beetle (DCEU) | OTA

Balayna Ferasini | Star Trek: Discovery

norton campbell | identity v

3

[buries face into hands in shame]

Jean Gunnhildr | Genshin Impact | OTA

Thancred Waters | Final Fantasy XIV | OTA

elain archeron — acotar.

Libra | FE: Awakening | ota

Laura Kearney | The Quarry

rin sohma | fruits basket | m/f or tohrus

edelgard von hresvelg | fire emblem: 3 hopes

peko pekoyama | super dangan ronpa 2 | m/f

junpei tenmyouji | zero escape | m/f

rinoa heartilly | ffviii | m/f

maki harukawa | new dangan ronpa v3 | m/f