#(mainly for the Variantverse haha)

[blackbloodteeth]

do you see all the variants in some kind of "multiverse" or do you sometimes feel that thinking about "how would all those different versions interact" is more limiting than freeing to those ideas?

Honey, you got a big storm comin'.

If you'll give me a moment, allow me to elaborate on what exactly a "variant" is to begin with, especially for those who are uninitiated.

We all know Soul, Soul Evans, Soul Eater Evans. At the basic level, a variant is another "alternate reality" version of him that might be just a little bit different (or a lot, in many more obvious cases). Think of this "variantism" as a form of energy – the higher amount of energy, or variantism, stored within the Soul, the greater the differences.

Some Souls are not outwardly referred to as variants because this variantism is so low, there's no perceivable or known difference between it and a close-to-canon Soul (otherwise known as a "baseline" Soul, though these human Souls even vary between being a demon weapon to begin with). It is an established fact that the Soul depicted in canon – manga, anime, etc. – can not ever be a variant or be involved in this variant multiverse, though this partly stems from a joke that the main reason for this is because of manga Soul's hair.

Now with this core concept in mind: The collective tangled net of realities that hosts these variants, is what is known as the Variantverse. Since you've got me in such a giddy mood, I will share this fact that I have not ever elaborated to any other soul until this very moment, which is that the Variantverse in of itself is a living thing. In the extremely rare instances I've touched upon the concept that is Everything (long story, drives some who've witnessed it fully mad, others simply can't process it and get a little distorted from it), the two are in essence one and the same. The Variantverse is alive, but it can't physically be perceived in its sheer extensiveness.

And with all living things, it changes constantly, the "cells" that make it up all existing as the lifeblood of a strange, lonesome heartbeat of cosmic infinity. I could go on about the nuances of variantism and parasitism, but that is most certainly a ramble for another occasion.

So to answer the first half of your question, yes. All the damn time. And to answer the other half: It's actually the other way around, haha.

There's a staggering number of variants I bring up on the regular that actually start out as variant interactions, I just end up toning it down 99% of the time (if you see a drawing accompanying a blurb or cyptic message, it most likely happened because I saw them interacting with another Soul. Like boom, boom, boom, boom. These were all initially variant interactions). I think part of why I get reluctant to keep them that way is because it's probably harder to digest, or doesn't feel as "fleshed out" as putting them back into their home reality and figuring out the world around them, which is honestly more true for the writing side of my creative endeavors considering how little I've written about more than one Soul in the same setting (and the "Variantverse" tag on AO3 has a comparatively abysmal amount of use, haha).

I'm not sure if I would necessarily say it's limiting, though. I like leaving a lot of things open to interpretation and I'm not the biggest fan of setting ideas in stone, so I tend to tone this variant interaction aspect down or leave things vague because it can be more fun and interesting that way. Is it a shame I don't do more of Soul interacting with himself? Yeah, I think so, but also that was my least-viewed fic so the statistics outnumber me, hahaha.

I also don't mind the nebulous degree of separation that comes with having one side of focus more towards "self-contained" Soul ideas, and the behemoth that is every time I fancy to actually think about the overarching lore of the Variantverse. The very little amount of art containing the three main protagonists of the main Variantverse story is probably telling of something. I think.

So yeah, haha. There's a big ol' multiverse of these silly critters, but I'm not really… hm, afraid of doing anything a certain way like I had been when the whole thing first started to come to life. Those few times I'd been told a Soul "doesn't look like Soul" or that voice that worries Soul isn't "Soul enough" doesn't really haunt me as much anymore. And I mean really, would you even be exactly the same person in another reality where you're an animate, carnivorous statue? Silly.

I think genuinely it was only limiting when I tried to keep a list of all of them, because that ended up being detrimental to my overall health, hahaha