Soulbond... costumes? *is confuzzled*

[katullus.livejournal.com]

The first time I met Katullus, he looked like Jareth from the Labyrinth.  It wasn't Jareth, of course, he was simply wearing Jareth's body.  Does that make sense?

Everyone in here is definitely their own person.  Always have been and always will be.  But since I'm a predominantly visual creature, I have a need to match their voices and minds with faces I've already seen elsewhere, even if it isn't a perfect match.  Therefore, when I picture them in my head, they will often look like a movie character I most closely associate them with.  Erik in fact looks like Erik Lensherr- Magneto from X-Men.  He never wanted a name, but that's what I call him because he had Magneto's appearance long before I knew how to determine him from anyone else in conversation.  Meanwhilst, Katullus will occasionally look like Jareth, but not so much anymore, often like V (V for Vendetta), sometimes like Aragorn (LOTR), on the rare occasion, like Ramirez (Sean Connery's role in Highlander), and another unique appearance he crafted solely for himself.  Kacharkau almost invariably looks like Wolverine, with a dash of Billy the Kid (Green Mile) thrown in.  But none of them are assigned the exclusive mannerisms of these characters.  I don't call them soulbonds.  It's more like the characters are their avatars.

Has anybody else observed this phenomena?

KatScratch

Comments

[fogsystem.livejournal.com]

The first time I met Grave I swore he was Azure Kite :\

I think it's just your mind jumping to conclusions based on the physical similarities, or something.

~Alana

[ex-casteylan314.livejournal.com]

Our Russandol (Maedhros) is a double for the way Axl Rose looked about 20 years ago. Someone once said they thought I looked like Jareth too, but I disagree. Aside from that, nothing similar in our system, but I know of at least two other systems where that sort of thing is very common.

[vespernexus.livejournal.com]

Superficial resemblances can happen, and because the way we perceive each other isn't completely visual if the 'broadstrokes' of someone match an image we already have it's easy for us to say "Oh, yes, he looks exactly like so-and-so" when, after we get to know them, they probably only look slightly like so-and-so.

Not exactly the same, since we're less visual, but something a little similar perhaps?

- Jack & Irving

[weirdiguess.livejournal.com]

Not something we've found from here real much, but there's been other people where it's basically seemed like they're people, and they just use a name and appearance that clicks right for them.

[gryphons.livejournal.com]

Alex and several others hid behind .. "avatars" that they thought/hoped wouldn't bother brighid too much.. so she'd get used to having them around.. before she was told who and what they were.. .. still sometimes people will hide this way.. and yeah they do act as avatars..ways we can identify them without seeing them..
-a.p.

[tatteredscars.livejournal.com]

the girls have either described to me what they look like, or i've seen them in a dream or in my mind's eye. and since they're all younger girls, i've just found pictures of kids online that sort of look like them. if you want to see what i mean, visit the journals of shelbyandlily (or lilyandshelby, can't rememeber) and iammargeurite. some of the pictures are uncanny with what the girls really look like.
alison

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Other than the Kaiju, most of our so-called soulbonds are in actuality avatars of non-soulbonds. Many of our reediest members, as a matter of fact, proved to be quite massive when they dropped the Avatar shtick. Of course, that's because most of the ones we thought were human, were actually one of the more muscular and intimidating-appearing species from our homeworld.

Even Vladimir Harkonnen is in actuality a member of that particular species who let himself deteriorate into a huge mass of flab. Many of our soulbonds, have chosen their fictional character roles because those characters appealed to them, but in the last three months, the disguises have fallen off.

So, we experienced this particular thing, too.

Clarner^Crew.

[forever-alone.livejournal.com]

Johnny is named after a character from my favorite book, because he looks like how I had always pictured that character, although he's nothing like the Johnny from the book. Not exactly the same as you described, but similar. I understand what you mean though.

I often wonder how much of what we see of the others are really them, or just us matching an appearance to their voices and mannerisms.

[coldironkiss.livejournal.com]

Yup. Beast looks like Riddick, and Robin looks like Sena Robin.

-Shay

[katullus.livejournal.com]

Really? Katullus looks like Riddick sometimes too. I left out a lot of people. Like Liam Neeson (a la Batman Begins). He shapeshifts a lot...

[lion-azure.livejournal.com]

We've heard of it happening, but it's never happened with us. Most of us are what's called insourced soulbonds anyway, meaning that we come from stories that our host thought up herself. The outsourced ones come from books which haven't been translated into visual media yet (and probably won't ever be, seeing that they're pretty obscure). So everyone has their own unique appearance, and nobody ever felt the need to pick a disguise.
The visual representations we use in our various user icons are approximations - read, Malak looks a bit like Howl, Draco looks a bit like Joaquin Phoenix etc, - but they're by no means 100% accurate.

As an aside (and in no way directed at you): we get very annoyed by people who postulate that every soulbond is in fact just a guise taken up by a spirit/alter for the benefit of the poor host, as to not frighten them, or for any number of other reasons. To us, that's the equivalent of saying "the alters of a plural person are just different masks of themselves". Also, our host has been doing spirit/shamanic work for eight years now, and is arrogant enough to say that she damn well knows when she's being played for a fool by a spirit ;).

[katullus.livejournal.com]

As a response to your aside, I actually don't think that any of them chose the way I see them, but instead it's the other way around- it's me choosing to see them the best way I can. I don't even have any evidence that any of them even work in a visual dimension. But like I said, having a visual label sorts things out in my mind. Same thing with names. Almost all of them I gave names myself just because my mind is so humanly handicapped that I can't sort them out with a label. They probably all have names in their own tongue that I could never hope to pronounce or even hear with my mind's ears.

This is all postulation...

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Taking on images is not something we do ordinarily, but we have known plenty of other groups who say that one or more persons will do that, especially newcomers, in order to give people a frame of reference for them and yes, this is different from soulbonding.

[nat-leia.livejournal.com]

I had a hard time figuring this thing out when I came here, our host is highly visually oriented and thus it seems there were quite many representations for various mood states of people and what not, that was confusing. I've got past it while talking to those people though, eventually oriented myself in this picture jungle...

Some people still prefer to do that 'and guess if it's still me or someone else?' thing with masks just for fun, though I'm more catching up on the feel of them and the way they're interacting than what they mm, present their visuals like.

-- Zack

[phen0type.livejournal.com]

We really have not taken on such images; we have our own appearances. I am sure that others have had that experience, though.

Richard