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akaluan · 4 years

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I have so many questions for the new soulmate au, which I love! The rights and exceptions and whatnot outlined in the treaties and laws which Erich and Tanya refer to - what are they, in a basic overview, and how long have they been a thing legally? Can Erich get in contact with his wife and tell her what's going on or give her a warning of the Reapers without Kisuke catching wind of it? Where's Kisuke's timeline right now, how did he find Erich? And what does a plum tree mean here?

*laughs* Yeah, I saw your comment and was planning on making a post about it, so now’s as good a time as any i suppose.

So!

a) Soulmate treaties/laws

They’ve been in effect for a couple centuries now in their current form (i mean, with revisions/addendum etc), but societies have had various versions of them off and on for... most of civilization.

Current form, however, involves a couple basic things that Tanya and Erich have alluded to:

1) Soulmates cannot be kept from each other against their will

(Tanya is very UGH about this one because it means that Kisuke showing up in the MIDDLE OF THEIR CAMP during war is perfectly legal and any attempt to prohibit that can be claimed as “soulmate interference” which could get her into deep trouble. It’s MEANT to be a Romeo/Juliet clause, so that people who have a soulmate across some divide -- family conflict, nations in a cold war, etc -- have a legal right to meet each other)

(It does NOT technically permit actions like sabotage/stealing/etc, and anyone caught using this clause to perpetrate damage to their soulmate’s group falls into a murky grey area because Oh No, What If They Were Doing It At Their Soulmate’s Urging, What If There’s Some Cause. But a lot of the time both soulmates just get in huge trouble and are prosecuted as a unit.)

2) Soulmates who are from ideologically incompatible groups or from groups that have traditionally been prosecutor/prosecuted are not forced to be together.

(IE: Reaper/Quincy style situations or similar.)

2a) Soulmates who fall under this clause can be kept apart without repercussions so long as there’s evidence that one or both sides is having a detrimental effect on the other.

(Tanya’s using ‘Erich was scared out of his wits and going for his gun’ as her justification. It’ll fly. Just. But also she’s not ENTIRELY using this clause, she’s using the next one. Though this was absolutely the clause she was using when she chased Kisuke off.)

2b) Soulmates who fall under this clause have a right to a 3rd party being present at all times to monitor interactions.

(It’s the enforced chaperone clause, wheee! And absolutely what Tanya’s using right now.)

2c) Soulmates who fall under this clause have a right to repudiate their soulmate without repercussions.

(I mean. In practice. In theory there’s your standard “well couldn’t you have worked it out? You were soulmates!” response from a portion of society, but generally there’s a lot less judgment of repudiation via this clause than repudiation without this clause.)

(Tanya is partially incorrect in her statement that Erich’s justified in repudiating Kisuke right now, though. Because there tends to need to be records/evidence/etc that’s admissible in court for this to fly and uuhhhh... There Really Isn’t.)

3) Soulmates have rights and privileges equal to married couples no matter their gender or actual relationship or how MANY soulmates are in the group

(It’s ASSUMED that everyone with a soulmate will be in a Standard Sexual Relationship at some point and then... no one really Questions It to find out. It’s an annoying assumption but it DOES give everyone blanket rights!)

(Multi-soulmates have been a thing as long as civilization has, so in this universe, same-sex and multi-pairing groups are just as “correct” as one man-one woman. You have your religious wingnuts of course who think that people with soulmates that doesn’t meet Their Religious Standard are going to go burn in hell, but it’s not as common or widespread.)

---

There are absolutely more but those are the only ones I’ve really given thought to bc they’re the only one’s that “matter” right now.

Also, regarding multi-soulmates, the statistics are approximately like this:

0 soulmate: 10%

1 soulmate: 50%

2 soulmate: 25%

3 soulmate: 10%

4+ soulmate: 5%

Give or take.

b) Can Erich get in contact with his wife and tell her what's going on or give her a warning of the Reapers without Kisuke catching wind of it?

I mean, kinda? He’s limited by the situation he’s in right now, of course -- he’s on one of the borders, basically in guerrilla warfare mode, and supplies/ability to send mail is VERY limited and radio contact has to be kept to a minimum and is usually restricted to military information only.

Soulmates CAN communicate in a limited fashion through the marks themselves, but only emotions. So Alexis sensed his fear but not what he was afraid of. As far as she knows, he just had another brush with death, not found out that their second soulmate is a Reaper.

Communication with Alexis is going to have to wait until certain events occur or until I decide that she’s had enough and she’s invoking soulmate law 1 and checking in on her husband despite the active combat zone.

(No one can tell her no, after all =) )

c) Where's Kisuke's timeline right now, how did he find Erich?

Kisuke is like.. 3 to 5 years after the exile from Soul Society. He’s semi-recovered from the stress and found a balance for the crushing depression, and now he wants something that’s HIS and thus his trip to Find His Soulmates.

Soulmates can tell limited direction-to-soulmate if they concentrate hard enough (and are in the same world), but it’s sorta like playing a world-level game of Hot And Cold. Kisuke, who has all the time in the world and the stubbornness to match, can dedicate the sort of time to this that Erich cannot.

(Also, sharing powers through soulmarks is limited to spiritual powers AND helps to ‘light up’ a direction because the person being pulled from can feel the direction of pull. From Erich’s moment of panic to the time Kisuke found him that night, Kisuke was basically hunting for an entire day even though he was already ‘close by’.)

d) And what does a plum tree mean here?

Syyymboliiiism

Okay but serious answer:

Kisuke - Plum Tree: (Genius, Keep your promise, fidelity) + (Protective charm against evil)

Flowers: (Perseverance, hope)

(Tanya, being formerly Japanese, reads the ‘protective charm’ meaning into the plum tree whereas Erich doesn’t because he doesn’t know about it. Both meaning sets are correct, however)

Alexis - Oak: (Hospitality, Bravery, Humanity)

Erich - Walnut: (Intelligence, stratagem)

e) And a question you didn’t ask: Akitsushima Dominion?

Sometimes I forget people don’t live in the Tanya the Evil Wiki or roll around in it’s lore like I do.

It’s the in-world name for Japan.

Also, Kisuke IS speaking Japanese, and Tanya outed herself as knowing Japanese though Erich hasn’t had time to mentally process that little fact yet. Erich knows Japanese because he was a diplomat-ish-y person at one point I believe (I forget his exact position but he went to foreign countries before the war broke out) and he’s a big believer in knowing foreign languages because it can give him an advantage.

#soulmate au #meta #erich von rerugen #urahara kisuke #alexis von rerugen #tanya von degurechaff #phoenixwithahoardoflibraries #replies

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mittensmorgul · 5 years

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This talk of the early seasons gives me another question: do you think the demons were trying to break John in hell? Like, were they trying to break the first seal with John a couple years before Dean? Or do you think breaking Dean was the original plan all along? (I'm aware the writers wouldn't have known about the seals while writing John being in hell seasons 1/2. I'm concerned about the Watsonian perspective here.) Thanks for your wisdom btw, I love your perspective on this stuff 😬

Hi there! First off, thanks! I do my best, and I’m glad you’re enjoying it :D

Second, wheee! Watsonian perspective is what I care most about, so I’ll stick to that. Well, mostly… the one thing I feel I do need to bring up is the timeline of s2, which I would suggest falls roughly over the span of time during which it airs– that’s to say that 2.01 (where John dies) and 2.22 (where John pops out of Hell and gives the assist in killing Azazel) are approximately eight to eleven months apart, depending on which theory of the timeline you subscribe to.

We know that 2.22 takes place immediately after the events of 2.21, which we have a concrete date for– Dean sells his soul on May 2, 2007. According to the Superwiki, John was killed by Azazel on July 19, 2006, but that’s a guess based on the date listed on the heart monitor of the girl who dies in the hospital in 2.01. And we all know how… timey-wimey those sorts of props can be, and I’m uncomfortable making definitive timeline estimates based on just those things. But for the purposes of this post, we’ll assume the range of potential timeline for 2.01 runs between late July and late September 2006 (since 2.01 aired on September 28, 2006, and often without other concrete dates, we assume canon runs approximately parallel to our real time).

So, John was in Hell for somewhere between 8 and 10 months, approximately, of canon standard time. But what do we really know about that time he spent in Hell?

We know DEAN’S experience in Hell, where he was being specifically worked over to the point of breaking. We know that his four months (actually more like four and a half– from May 2, 2008 through his resurrection date of September 18, 2008), but that it actually felt more like 40 years to him.

I need to stress this specifically, because the fandom assumption has always been “well, this is just what time is like uniformly throughout Hell, and not a targeted, concentrated experience catered specifically to accelerating Dean’s progression to surrender and pick up the blade himself, in fulfillment of the prophecy.”

I… always assumed that Dean’s experience was unique in Hell, and that– based on every other glimpse we’ve seen of Hell– Time runs… pretty much like normal Earth time there. Think of Crowley’s meeting with Cas in 6.20, in Hell’s waiting line. Or 11.09-11.10 (where we see more of Hell than ever before– both Crowley’s “dining room” there, several passageways, and the “stage cage” in Limbo), where time in Hell parallels exactly the characters who are still on Earth. While waiting for Dean and then Cas to arrive, for example, Sam only spends about half an hour with Lucifer in the cage alone, and Crowley and Rowena only spend the same amount of in-show time there as it takes for Dean and Cas to arrive, respectively. Finally, we have 8.19, wherein we know Sam had exactly 24 hours to break into Hell, retrieve Bobby, and escape to be picked up by the reaper who never arrived because Crowley was killed. Sam’s time “in Hell” exactly paralleled Dean’s time on Earth, as well as “purgatory time,” which we know runs approximately parallel to Earth Time after Dean spent “about a year” there.

So the logical conclusion is that “Hell Time” is malleable, but that Dean’s experience there was… unique. According to the prophecy they were ALL trying to bring about, Dean was put on the Break-The-Righteous-Man-Speed-Run plan. And I do believe this was a highly specific circumstance, and that Dean’s “Hell Time Dilation” was specific to his time in Hell, and not a universal blanket statement on how time works in Hell in general.

So… I postulate that John only spent those 8-10 months in “normal time” in Hell. And despite Alastair’s taunts in 4.16:

Alastair: John Winchester. Made a good name for himself. A hundred years. After each session, I’d make him the same offer I made you. I’d put down my blade if he picked one up.Dean: Just give me the demon’s name, Alastair.Alastair: But he said nein each and every time. Oh, damned if I couldn’t break him. Pulled out all the stops, but John, he was, well, made of something unique. The stuff of heroes. And then came Dean. Dean Winchester. I thought I was up against it again. But daddy’s little girl, he broke. He broke in thirty. Oh, just not the man your daddy wanted you to be, huh, Dean?

Because JOHN WAS NEVER THE ONE THAT NEEDED TO BREAK. But Alastair was intimately familiar with Dean’s experience, intimately familiar with how to HURT DEAN SPECIFICALLY, and this was an excellent try. But John… was NEVER the righteous man who needed to break, according to the prophecy. It ALWAYS had to be Dean. So… why would John have been tortured that way?

Not to mention, if John HAD been literally strapped to Alastair’s table, tortured constantly for his entire time in Hell, then how the heck did he manage to sneak out the Hellgate in 2.22? Like… think about it for a second.

The demons who escaped were essentially “in the right place at the right time,” because the one demon Azazel was trying to let out– which we won’t learn until 4.22– was Lilith.

We assume that the other demons who managed to sneak through before the gates were slammed shut happened to be Lilith-adjacent– such as Ruby (who knew Lilith’s whole plan from the start), and other demons who were already loyal to Lilith (such as Casey from 3.04, and Tammi from 3.09, and eventually all the demons Lilith surrounded herself with in 3.12 and 3.16).

And yet… out strolled John Winchester. Because Hell literally didn’t need him anymore. Dean had already made his deal. The clock was ticking on the guy they ACTUALLY needed. And heck if that doesn’t parallel exactly what Zachariah said to Adam in 5.18:

ZACHARIAH: Hey, don’t get me wrong. You’ve been a hell of a sport, really. Good stuff. But the thing is, you’re not so much the “chosen one” as you are…a clammy scrap of bait.ADAM: No…but what about the stuff that you said? I’m supposed to fight the devil.ZACHARIAH: Mmm, not so much. Hey, if it’s any consolation, you happen to be the illegitimate half-brother of the guy we do care about. That’s not bad, is it?ADAM: So you lied…about everything.ZACHARIAH: We didn’t lie. We just avoided certain truths to manipulate you.

Because that’s the thing with this show– Heaven and Hell are pretty much the same. Sam goals, same methods, same objectives, just with a different set of aesthetics, a different interior decorator if you will.

If John had actually been tortured the way Alastair claimed in 4.16, would he have just been at liberty to conveniently stroll through the gate in 2.22? Would he have even been able to leave at all? Would he have looked so fresh as a daisy? I mean

Looks pretty good for a dude just strolled outta hell, you know? Not even the least bit demon-y, right? And we know it takes a heck of a lot less time than a century for a human soul to be demonized in Hell… So everything else– aside from Alastair’s statement to Dean in 4.16, which was a deliberately targeted barb specifically said to make Dean doubt himself while he was actively torturing the demon who’d tortured HIM for four decades and therefore HIGHLY suspect in context of the rest of canon– would suggest that John had been basically stashed in Hell’s Cold Storage for about 8 months while the demons were meticulously arranging circumstances on Earth to set up the events of 2.21-2.22, luring Dean into selling his soul for Sam, and Azazel getting the Devil’s Gate opened to let Lilith escape.

Because strangely enough, I believe the Crossroads Demon in 2.08 more than I trust Alastair in 4.16:

DEAN: Can you bring him back? My dad?DEMON: Of course I can. Just as he was. Your dad would live a long and natural life, like he was meant to. That’s a promise.DEAN: What about me?DEMON: I could give you ten years. Ten long good years with him. That’s a lifetime. The family can be together again. John, Dean, Sammy. The Winchester boys all reunited. (she advances towards him) Look. Your dad’s supposed to be alive. You’re supposed to be dead. So we’ll just set things straight, put things back in their natural order. And you get ten extra years on top. That’s a bonus.

John was never the one they actually wanted. John was never going to work as the Righteous Man, or as Michael’s True Vessel for the purposes of the specific prophecies of the Apocalypse. As Gabriel once said in 5.08:

GABRIEL: You sorry sons of bitches. Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father, and Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy’s plan. You were born to this, boys. It’s your destiny! It was always you! As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other.DEAN: What the hell are you saying?GABRIEL: Why do you think I’ve always taken such an interest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always.

So… no, I think John’s tenure in Hell was probably a boring (compared to Dean’s) few months spent adjacent to Lilith so she could keep an eye on him in case Dean did take some sort of demon deal to trade his life back for John’s before they were scheduled to.

And finally, a bit of a Doylist justification for all of that: I don’t think any of this was planned back when s2 was being written. I don’t think they’d considered the later retcon of s4 and Dean’s “forty years” in Hell while writing s2. I don’t think they’d thought any of this was part of some larger prophecy of the Apocalypse yet. None of that came about until 4.01, because there had NEVER been any intent to introduce Angels or Heaven into the cosmology of that universe until that point anyway. So… they made the most out of what they had already stated canonically, and left it to us to make the most sense out of it. And this ^^ is my best, least plot-holey, most canon-compliant theory based on the entirety of canon. :)

#spn 2.01 #spn 2.22 #spn 4.16 #spn 5.08 #spn 5.18 #spn 4.22 #spn 3.04 #spn 3.09 #spn 3.12 #spn 3.16 #spn 2.08 #spn cosmology #the ghost of john winchester #heaven hell purgatory and the empty #spn 6.20 #spn 11.10 #spn 8.19 #Anonymous #spn timeline

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