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lb_leeSneak: While Mori was digging through old soulbonding pages for Madgic #4, we stumbled on the origin of "outsourcing"!
Coined By: Laura Gilkey (AKA Half-Esper Laura)
What it Means: It describes a soulbond (a fictional character that someone forms a relationship with) that comes from media created by an outside party.
Time Used: May 2002-?
Locations Used: Soulbonding arenas (websites, soulbonding Livejournal groups); seems to have fallen out of favor with the newer generations where soulbonding kinda got assimilated into the greater plural arena.
Laura Gilkey was a soulbonder, probably best known for writing the soulbonding story The Trinity, which she based on her own experiences! But it looks like she was the coiner of "outsourcing" to describe a soulbond/fictive that came from an outside media source, like Harry Potter or Bugs Bunny. ("Insource" may have been reverse-engineered from the term to describe a soulbond from a self-made media... like the Mac who lives here!) I found it in her "What I Think" ramble from May 2002:
"My own term, which I would like to see added to the Soulbonding lexicon: Outsourcing. Simply, this is the SBing of characters that the SBer did not create. From what I've seen, this can be one of the more divisive topics among Soulbonders. Everyone has their place on the "outsourcing-original" spectrum, and their reasons why that place is best for them. Thankfully it's rare for someone to assume that those reasons are generalizeable to other people, but still, it's kind of a controversial thing. I'll make my position clear: my closest soulbonds always have always been outsourced ones. I have had several SBs who were my original creations, but they were never as strong, and usually faded more quickly. Don't get me wrong, I have put a lot of "creating" into every one of my outsourced SBs, and I think everyone who has them does, whether they realize it or not, but that imported starting point seems to be something I need. I'm not entirely sure why this is. I think perhaps it has to do with revelation and mystery, that having them come from outside helps them achieve the balance of "otherness" that makes a SB most fully realized for me. But outsourcing has a variety of effects:
Also of interest in that ramble is Gilkey discussing the idea of soulbonding, plurality, and multiplicity as a spectrum! Twenty years on, her ideas still hold up really well today, I dare say!
"Soulbonding and Multiplicity: I'm not familiar with the Multiple community online, but I respect what I know about them. Often it is suggested---and I essentially agree---that Soulbonding and Multiplicity are points along a common spectrum, which let's call "Plurality of Identity." It has been pointed out, and well so, that some Plurality of Identity is healthy, indeed I believe necessary for health. Is some measure of the trait not necessary for reversibility, that essential skill of looking at things from another person's point of view, understanding the ramifications of your actions for others? Much like Dissociation, the trait that lets you take part of your experience and leave the rest---a little bit of dissociation is necessary for health, to avoid drowning in sensation, but too much creates disorders like Dissociative Amnesia. Indeed, Dissociation and Plurality of Identity would have to be closely linked to sort experience among various selves, I would think, and Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder) is classified as a Dissociative Disorder. Anyway, higher on the Plurality scale, yet still within the healthy range, one finds Soulbonding and Multiplicity---my own SBing is nowhere near Multiplicity area, but I have known fellow SBers who came quite close. If I had to draw a line of distinction, I personally would place it at "fronting." From what I've seen, by and large Soulbonds usually don't control their bonder's body, where Multiples share control. Now, I'm going to say something that other people who have noted this commonality don't seem to agree with: I believe that there is such a thing as Dissociative Identity/Multiple Personality Disorder. Not that Multiplicity is unhealthy, but that there are people for whom Plurality of Identity occurs in a way that meets the most important criteria for mental illness: it interferes with their coping ability and causes them suffering. Such people do have a mental illness, and they do need and deserve help. However, I also think that the psychology/psychotherapy community could and should put themselves in a better position to help true DID/MPD sufferers by understanding and accepting well-adjusted forms of Plurality, or at least should get it into their heads and into the textbooks that complete singularity is not necessary for mental health." (ibid)
Seeing as she knew the Eclective, it's possible she got the idea from them, or they brainstormed it together? Because later in July, Riesz Fenrir and Daidouji Tomoyo of Eclective posted "clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right....", an "intro to midcontinuum Multiplicity." (This was before "median" became the search/replace term.)
Gilkey herself didn't switch, had no soulscape, and experienced her soulbonding in a fairly singlet way, but I've really enjoyed reading her words, much later on! I also really love how she describes soulbonding: “because not even Reality is a boundary to Friendship” (2003).
Gilkey writes of her soulbonds with love. In her self-hosted version of the Trinity (2002, August), she states "Christine, as you may have guessed, is largely a self-portrait character, although she was never entirely me, and whatever part of me she incorporated, I've done some growing up and my world-view has changed quite a bit since then. [...] Hotohori was my primary SB when I was writing this, and Seihara is essentially him with a different name and enough tweaks to make him a new character." In the Trinity, she writes of Christine dancing with Seihara:
"I knew I was so much more than that plain, clumsy, powerless self; that I was strong and beautiful and glorious, not because I could bring this person into the world to do my will, but because I could let him come into the world to do his own will, and in so doing he would take my hands and dance with me.
"For that reason I can never totally bring myself to regret that night, despite everything. I love him; call it narcissism, to love someone who is also myself, but I do, and I wanted to dance until my shoes struck sparks that would light every glory of my hidden world."
"I hold them close and I love them, in all their joys and pains. They’re separate people, yet they’re part of me."
Whatever it is she's doing, I hope she's happy and doing well. She said some cool stuff!
Sources:
Eclective, Riesz Fenrir and Daidouji Tomoyo of. (2002). clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right.... [web page] http://childofmana.tripod.com/multiplemidcont-intro.htm Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20020918063730/http://childofmana.tripod.com/multiplemidcont-intro.htm
Gilkey, Laura. (2002, May). "What I Think" Archive 2002 [web page]. http://www.shininghalf.com/ithink2.html#may Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20020622134147/http://www.shininghalf.com:80/ithink2.html#may
Gilkey, Laura. (2002, August). The Trinity. [web page]. http://www.shininghalf.com/poetry/trinity Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20020825070103/http://www.shininghalf.com/poetry/trinity.html
Gilkey, Laura. (2003). Soulbonding [web page]. http://www.shininghalf.com/soulbond.html Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20030223044023/http://www.shininghalf.com:80/soulbond.html
Coined By: Laura Gilkey (AKA Half-Esper Laura)
What it Means: It describes a soulbond (a fictional character that someone forms a relationship with) that comes from media created by an outside party.
Time Used: May 2002-?
Locations Used: Soulbonding arenas (websites, soulbonding Livejournal groups); seems to have fallen out of favor with the newer generations where soulbonding kinda got assimilated into the greater plural arena.
Laura Gilkey was a soulbonder, probably best known for writing the soulbonding story The Trinity, which she based on her own experiences! But it looks like she was the coiner of "outsourcing" to describe a soulbond/fictive that came from an outside media source, like Harry Potter or Bugs Bunny. ("Insource" may have been reverse-engineered from the term to describe a soulbond from a self-made media... like the Mac who lives here!) I found it in her "What I Think" ramble from May 2002:
"My own term, which I would like to see added to the Soulbonding lexicon: Outsourcing. Simply, this is the SBing of characters that the SBer did not create. From what I've seen, this can be one of the more divisive topics among Soulbonders. Everyone has their place on the "outsourcing-original" spectrum, and their reasons why that place is best for them. Thankfully it's rare for someone to assume that those reasons are generalizeable to other people, but still, it's kind of a controversial thing. I'll make my position clear: my closest soulbonds always have always been outsourced ones. I have had several SBs who were my original creations, but they were never as strong, and usually faded more quickly. Don't get me wrong, I have put a lot of "creating" into every one of my outsourced SBs, and I think everyone who has them does, whether they realize it or not, but that imported starting point seems to be something I need. I'm not entirely sure why this is. I think perhaps it has to do with revelation and mystery, that having them come from outside helps them achieve the balance of "otherness" that makes a SB most fully realized for me. But outsourcing has a variety of effects:
- Outsourced SBs have "handles." It's much more difficult finding anyone who cares about an original creation than to find fellow fans of the source material who care whether you have an outsourced SB. In the wrangling I've seen, however, this very trait seems to have been abused quite a bit by superficial fans and has, if anything, given outsourcing a bad name. In my own case, it doesn't matter, because I've gradually kept my SBs out of the limelight more and more until by now, I'd usually prefer that people didn't want to talk to them or anything.
- There is the above-mentioned trait of "revelation and mystery" that adds some magic to outsourced SBs for some people (including me). However...
- Usually I try not to push my opinions on other people, but this is one thing I believe strongly enough to state it as a fact. All outsourced SBs are alternate versions of the character. Every single one. Sometimes obviously (like my Hotohori), sometimes more subtly (like my Soujiro), but there's no way out of it. No two people's take on a character is the same. Even if I accepted every panel of the manga as canon---which I don't, BTW---the Soujiro in my head would still move and think in a different way and have a subtly different history than the one in Nobuhiro Watsuki's head. This is because no two imaginations are quite the same, and I don't think that anyone who reads or watches such things is so devoid of imagination that they will extrapolate nothing from what they see, and if they did manage it, then any Soulbonds gotten from it would be broken records, only able to repeat their stories as ghosts walk that paths they did in life, even when walls have been built there since. I've never heard of this happening. So, while I'm a true believer in outsourcing, I have no time for yet another thing that's given the practice a bad name, people with outsourced SBs claiming that their interpretation is the only correct one. (Most of us are more responsible than that, rest assured, but sadly, I have seen it happen.)"
Also of interest in that ramble is Gilkey discussing the idea of soulbonding, plurality, and multiplicity as a spectrum! Twenty years on, her ideas still hold up really well today, I dare say!
"Soulbonding and Multiplicity: I'm not familiar with the Multiple community online, but I respect what I know about them. Often it is suggested---and I essentially agree---that Soulbonding and Multiplicity are points along a common spectrum, which let's call "Plurality of Identity." It has been pointed out, and well so, that some Plurality of Identity is healthy, indeed I believe necessary for health. Is some measure of the trait not necessary for reversibility, that essential skill of looking at things from another person's point of view, understanding the ramifications of your actions for others? Much like Dissociation, the trait that lets you take part of your experience and leave the rest---a little bit of dissociation is necessary for health, to avoid drowning in sensation, but too much creates disorders like Dissociative Amnesia. Indeed, Dissociation and Plurality of Identity would have to be closely linked to sort experience among various selves, I would think, and Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder) is classified as a Dissociative Disorder. Anyway, higher on the Plurality scale, yet still within the healthy range, one finds Soulbonding and Multiplicity---my own SBing is nowhere near Multiplicity area, but I have known fellow SBers who came quite close. If I had to draw a line of distinction, I personally would place it at "fronting." From what I've seen, by and large Soulbonds usually don't control their bonder's body, where Multiples share control. Now, I'm going to say something that other people who have noted this commonality don't seem to agree with: I believe that there is such a thing as Dissociative Identity/Multiple Personality Disorder. Not that Multiplicity is unhealthy, but that there are people for whom Plurality of Identity occurs in a way that meets the most important criteria for mental illness: it interferes with their coping ability and causes them suffering. Such people do have a mental illness, and they do need and deserve help. However, I also think that the psychology/psychotherapy community could and should put themselves in a better position to help true DID/MPD sufferers by understanding and accepting well-adjusted forms of Plurality, or at least should get it into their heads and into the textbooks that complete singularity is not necessary for mental health." (ibid)
Seeing as she knew the Eclective, it's possible she got the idea from them, or they brainstormed it together? Because later in July, Riesz Fenrir and Daidouji Tomoyo of Eclective posted "clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right....", an "intro to midcontinuum Multiplicity." (This was before "median" became the search/replace term.)
Gilkey herself didn't switch, had no soulscape, and experienced her soulbonding in a fairly singlet way, but I've really enjoyed reading her words, much later on! I also really love how she describes soulbonding: “because not even Reality is a boundary to Friendship” (2003).
Gilkey writes of her soulbonds with love. In her self-hosted version of the Trinity (2002, August), she states "Christine, as you may have guessed, is largely a self-portrait character, although she was never entirely me, and whatever part of me she incorporated, I've done some growing up and my world-view has changed quite a bit since then. [...] Hotohori was my primary SB when I was writing this, and Seihara is essentially him with a different name and enough tweaks to make him a new character." In the Trinity, she writes of Christine dancing with Seihara:
"I knew I was so much more than that plain, clumsy, powerless self; that I was strong and beautiful and glorious, not because I could bring this person into the world to do my will, but because I could let him come into the world to do his own will, and in so doing he would take my hands and dance with me.
"For that reason I can never totally bring myself to regret that night, despite everything. I love him; call it narcissism, to love someone who is also myself, but I do, and I wanted to dance until my shoes struck sparks that would light every glory of my hidden world."
"I hold them close and I love them, in all their joys and pains. They’re separate people, yet they’re part of me."
Whatever it is she's doing, I hope she's happy and doing well. She said some cool stuff!
Sources:
Eclective, Riesz Fenrir and Daidouji Tomoyo of. (2002). clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right.... [web page] http://childofmana.tripod.com/multiplemidcont-intro.htm Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20020918063730/http://childofmana.tripod.com/multiplemidcont-intro.htm
Gilkey, Laura. (2002, May). "What I Think" Archive 2002 [web page]. http://www.shininghalf.com/ithink2.html#may Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20020622134147/http://www.shininghalf.com:80/ithink2.html#may
Gilkey, Laura. (2002, August). The Trinity. [web page]. http://www.shininghalf.com/poetry/trinity Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20020825070103/http://www.shininghalf.com/poetry/trinity.html
Gilkey, Laura. (2003). Soulbonding [web page]. http://www.shininghalf.com/soulbond.html Internet Archive. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20030223044023/http://www.shininghalf.com:80/soulbond.html
