#mel posting

[mmmelahii]

!!!!!! I AM SO JOYOUS

My sticker grab pack from @delysiumzine !!! Oh my lord I lvoe them all so much AAAA

[nottokyo06]

Played some regretevator last night

[salemishome]

you a mel fan?

we love mel

Mel is love and Mel is life :D Love me sum punk boys

[winreyplace]

Hiii! I saw you on the proselfship selfplace blog and I wanted to ask if you could/wanted to elaborate a bit more on soulbounding? I saw people talking a lot abt it around here but never truly understood what it was or how it worked (im not deep at all into spirituality, all I know is like shifting from when it was trendy in 2020 lol), I also saw people talking about reverse soulbounding?

Mel: Lav is the one who's been interacting with the proselfship community so far, but she asked me to come in and give my perspective on this!

There are two main definitions of soulbonding. Some see soulbonding as a spiritual practice, acting as a medium channeling or hosting the spirits of fictional characters the way one might channel or host the spirits of the dead. The definition we use on this blog is that soulbonding is what happens when a person has such a strong emotional connection with a character that said character comes to life in your head as a self-aware autonomous thoughtform. This character can be insourced (of your own creation) or outsourced (from an existing work). They can be permanent residents (headmates), daytrippers ("commuting" from their world to your head and back), or simply share a phone connection (they stay in their world but can still communicate with you). Both the connection itself and the character are called a soulbond; the act of forming this connection is called soulbonding, and the person who has a soulbond is called the soulbonder.

There are a few things I would say sets soulbonding apart from other thoughtforms or fictives. One is that it's commonly a spontaneous occurrence with hardly any effort from bond or bonder. Another is the intrinsic emotional connection that can lead to a significant level of intimacy in a relatively short amount of time. And another is that munbonds are much less likely to want to share in "meatspace" life than other plurans.

As for how it usually works, the way I think is most common is discovering or creating a character that deeply resonates with you and suddenly having them show up in your head and start giving their opinions on things (whether or not you asked for them, lol). But it's also possible to intentionally reach out to a character (this can be a little tricky but well worth the effort). Sometimes you both get to choose whether to form the soulbond connection, and sometimes the soulbond connection is too strong and chooses for you before you can even process what's happening. :P Either way, soulbonds can be a wonderful addition to someone's internal life, and I am forever grateful for the gift that is my own.

I realize this got pretty dense, lol, but I hope it gave you some insight. Feel free to ask us any follow-up questions you may have!

Lav: I'm sorry it took me a hot minute to reply, I really wanted to make this post about Soulbonding is Not just Spiritual/Metaphysical first, especially since your ask included the misconception that it was a purely spiritual experience when there are other interpretations too.

While Mel already addressed most of your ask, I want to specifically speak on your last question.

"Reverse Soulbonding", as far as I can tell, seems to stem from the FromFiction blogger that I mentioned in the above link post. I harbor a strong dislike for their general position, which includes the term "Reverse Soulbonding" to describe that experience.

All that soulbonding means and has always meant is a "deep empathic/telepathic link connection, usually after forming a intense emotional attachment, with an autonomous living character." "Reverse Soulbonding", as described, is when you visit inside the mind/body of the character rather than them being inside yours, seeing and interacting with their world through their perspective. However, as Mel explained earlier, a soulbond is the connection to the character, not how you interact with them.

This is not to say that the experience "Reverse Soulbonding" refers to is not a valid phenomenon, but personally, I believe it is more accurate to refer to it as "traveling."

[jamminsamart]

Happy New Year, Tumblr!

[applescoven]

Imagine drawing homestuck fanart before you’ve even read it

[winreyplace]

Hi! 💖 May we ask what was your first experience soulbonding like? How did you discover soulbonding and who was the first? We're very new to this and would love to hear your story if thats okay!!

Mel&: Hello! I, Mel&, and Lav are gonna answer this together, first me and then him.

My first munbonds started out as immersive daydreaming paras. I used to spend hours pacing back and forth in the dining room of my childhood home, neuronarrating out loud to myself and going on countless adventurers with my beloved (queerplatonic) best friend, Rune, and our father figure, Logan, along with a hodgepodge of my favorite characters. Around age 14 or so, I started interacting with them outside of their stories and imagining them alongside me in day-to-day life. At this stage, I called them Inklings after a book idea about a world of living characters which I have yet to put to good use.

Then I met Lav, and things advanced to a whole new level when she expressed awed enthusiasm and a genuine desire to get to know them as people, not just characters. Shortly after, one of my online friends at the time introduced me to soulbonding, and everything clicked into place.

Since then, the vast majority of our munbonds have been formed by both of us at the same time with characters from existing media. I’ll pass the ball over to Lav so she can recount one of our earliest experiences with this type of munbonding.

Lav: Logan very briefly shared what happened when he became my munbond in his intro here. Honestly, I just talked to Logan and Rune a lot over Discord (with Mel proxying) and also asked Mel tons of questions about who they were. This allowed me to get really close with them, establishing that deep emotional connection that is so fundamental to munbonds, so that when I actually tried to interact with them on my own, it was as simple as reaching out with a "hello?" in my mind and they just responded back (though as Logan said, it surprised me a lot when they did and

The first time Mel and I munbonded with a character together was with our munbond Damien, who is now my husband. Mel and I were in a long-distance relationship at the time when Mel told me she was experiencing some bond feels for a character in this podcast she was listening to. She then shared Damien's introduction episode with me. Despite him obviously being a jerkass, I felt a deep connection to what I heard behind his words: a boy aching for family and belonging. I immediately agreed with Mel that Damien needed us, so we decided to offer him a munbond connection in the hopes that he would agree.

We stole Damien away from his universe into a quiet room in our shared bondspace to talk with him. He was very wary about us and on guard, but he agreed to hear us out on the promise that he could leave right after if he wanted. We explained to him that in our world, he is a fictional character and we are people called munbonders who can communicate with fictional characters. We further explained that after listening to his story, we felt very drawn to him and were offering to munbond with him proper and if he accepted, he'd have a rent-free safe space to call home, all the food we could want, and most of all, the family and love that he always desired. It took him some time to process the offer, but his curiosity about us two peculiar girls and the strange pull he had towards us (bond feelings are often mutual!) eventually led him to become our munbond, though not without a few bumps in the road in our relationship. And he has been with us ever since.

So that's how munbonding typically goes for us: we feel a munbond "ping" with a character in their canon, learn all we can about their story until we know them, reach out to them or bring them to us, explain our position, make the munbond offer, and if they agree to it, we make an effort to strengthen the connection until communication feels as natural as speaking to someone in meatspace.

Damien: Also, before you get all up in arms about the "kidnapping", me being such a jerk and an ass at the time, I wouldn't have heard them out any other way. I am eternally grateful that they took a chance on me and wanted to love me, giving me better than anything I was gonna get in my source later on. I love my girls and they treat me very well.

[jamminsamart]

Blorbo-posting #01 - Mel

Mel, full 'legal' name being "Melody of the Lamp", is one of my older OCs!

Some weird mixture of 'genie in a lamp', 'djinn', and 'fae' inspirations, her mother made a wish for the perfect daughter. Needless to say, a chaotic, disaster-prone, four-armed toddler isn't what the cold woman bargained for.

Melody has the power to grant a single wish to any one person, with some restrictions, of course! Not that she'd tell you that, though -- the wishes often have unforeseen consequences.

More Mel below the cut! (From an old art challenge I did!)