Out of This Lore Document

Soulmate marks started appearing in the 70s. Partner was easy for the world to swallow. Weirder ones, not quite as much.

Examples of Marks:

• Partner/Partner
• Princess/Knight
• Owner/Pet
• Owner/Slave
• Master/Slave
• Artist/Muse
• Companion/Companion
• Mentor/Apprentice

Think not just kink relationship roles, but life relationship roles.

This is a poly world. Someone who has a mentor/apprentice marking might also have a partner/partner marking. Most marks, especially the ones closer to lifetime romantic relationships, appear young, around early adulthood. In cases with agegap relationships the mark might be partially formed but not have text until both parties are over 18. Sometimes the mark might form later.

The requirement for something to be worth of a mark is that it represents a significant aspect of someone’s interpersonal life. There are no Friend/Friend marks, though Platonic Life Partner marks are totally fair game.

There’s also ‘acknowledgment marks.’ You might not have been destined to become someone’s apprentice, or partner, or caretaker. But if you have, and it’s a huge part of your life, that’s a mark.

You can imagine that choosing to pursue something like that even when it’s destined might have some social judgement to it now that marks are normal.

Marks Themselves

Marks themselves are incredibly personal. A collar might be a frequent and obvious motif for a pet or a slave, but they could just as well have a band around their ankle, to, for example, represent that they have the sort of relationship where the pet travels the world and then always comes back to their owner.

Marks start out small.

(Imagine this + “Partner of <name>” written below it)

(This tattoo would probably start as just a small outline. Then one stage would add the tail, another might add the second row of feathers to the first, and then the next/final one would add the flames. As usual, imagine there’s also the text).

Marks grow when one or both partners have a key insight about their personal relationship with each other and/or put it into practice. So for example, for an artist/muse relationship, the muse might have an insight about what, emotionally, inspires their artist during a session, and begin… bringing them strawberries, or singing, or whatever it is. They’re inhabiting their role more fully, embodying it better, and so their tattoo grows.

Fucking things up _can_ cause the tattoos to revert, and this can be physically and emotionally painful. See the studies alluded to about suicide figures—it’s much harder to stop doing something important than it is to not realize what you’re missing (for my trans friends, think about how detransition is a much more unbearable thought than not realizing you were trans was).

The universe AND plot function of these marks is as a tool of guidance. A one word label is not enough to define a relationship, and the evolving marks help guide our characters in the right direction (or pressure them, for the more inc type stories).

The Law

Because science shows that soulmates are so important to physical and emotional health, the government will step in in support of soulmate relationships. It’s sort of like not paying child support, except it’s engaging in the relationship.

For partners this might be mandated co-living or couples counseling.

For owners it might be forcibly acquiring their pet.

For pets it might be forcing the owner to agree to a care plan and fining them.

And yes, if someone wants to write a story about an unwanted pet, that would be a very dark one in this world. But remember, destiny! If they couldn’t work through it, they wouldn’t have the marks.