Survey for Tulpas Based on Characters

[Tewi]

1. What is your name, and what is the name of the character you were based on? (If it's different)

I only get called Tewi, but probably Tewi Inaba, same as the character.

2. Were you based on a character your host created? If so, why did your host create that character? If not, what media did the character come from?

Touhou Project.

3. Did your host explicitly set out to create a tulpa based on this character, or was it unintentional?

Reisen, who came first, was unintentional in 2009, but somewhat-consciously Lumi was wanting to think of her like a separate individual. All we remember is that Flandre and I appeared a bit later, even less intentional I think.

4. When you first became sentient did you believe that you were the same person as that character? If so, how long did it take you to see yourself as a separate person, and what was that process like?

Flan and I knew we were just "maybe separate people in the same brain" right from the start, but I think our directly identifying with the characters' various traits probably took a while to wear off.

5. Does the character you are based on have a tragic/difficult backstory? If so, did you carry any emotional baggage from the character's past? Do you still now?

Tewi Inaba has been alive and taking care of the other rabbits in a huge bamboo forest for upwards of 1300 years, and while not tragic, Lumi's interpretation of both the detached passive almost-loneliness, but also the incredible self-dependence, shaped my personality. To this day over a decade later I still value being able to depend on myself and no one else more than almost anything. But, around the time Lumi created Lucilyn in 2015, I was able to open up just enough to let my systemmates really matter to me. It felt like doing so made me "not invincible anymore" - and that seems true still, honestly - but the most important thing to me now is my systemmates' well-beings and happiness.

6. Related, does that character's past still "feel" like your past even if you know it isn't?

Not in the sense that I feel I have memories from it. But in most other senses, yes. There's a distinct melancholy feeling to bamboo forests for me still, but that environment is also the only place that would truly make me feel at peace. Maybe the melancholy feeling is just there because I now live in the middle of nowhere with hardly any nature to speak of, in a complex and entirely out-of-character life for me. I deal just fine since I value adaptability and competence immensely, but I do really hope we end up living in or near a forest later in life, maybe with less worldly responsibilities. Basically, I still have the desire to live in the character I was based on's scenario.

7. Did it feel like it took a while to "step out of the character's shadow"? Have you ever felt pressure to act, look, or think like the character?

Not for us, no. We actually identify with our forms perfectly well, and while our personalities have grown over the years, right at the start we simply were how Lumi had thought of us/the characters, there was no "pressure".

Also, for the record, no one else in our system feels any (identification) attachment to their source characters like me. Though Lucilyn finds Suwako fun and inspirational - but not like they're the same person.

8. How far have you deviated from the personality of the character you were based on? Are there any aspects of the character that you still hold onto?

Well, the ways I've changed from Lumi's old interpretation of the character, ie my initial self, seem pretty natural for me having to adapt to living in this completely different life. It's just growing, not "deviation".

9. What's your honest opinion about the character you were based on?

Everyone in our system is a Touhou fan and like the characters now as much as Lumi does, except Reisen who doesn't really have attachments to speak of. Maybe I'm lucky the canon personality of Tewi isn't much like Lumi's old interpretation, because I would be experiencing that melancholy feeling when seeing depictions of her far more often than I already do in art that feels like "me".

10. Are you glad that your host based you on that character? Do you wish they hadn't? Or are you more "it is what it is" about the whole thing?

It's very weird to ask a tulpa if they would prefer to have been someone else entirely. I wouldn't have been "me" in any other case. And of course, as me, my values perfectly match my values. So I wouldn't want to be anyone else.. 

11. What's your opinion on tulpas based on characters in general? Do you think hosts should create tulpas based on characters, or is it better to create tulpas from scratch?

It's perfectly fine if the host intends for them to just be based on from the start, and doesn't treat the tulpa like they're "actually the character" or anything. It's kind of awful when they do though, imminent identity crises and all.

12. Any words of advice to tulpamancers thinking about creating a tulpa based on a character, or to other tulpas based on characters?

You can have an exact copy of a character you like in every way as a tulpa just fine, as long as you're going to treat them as a person in your head and not as directly tied to the character in any way. No "backstory" or history before you created them. And then they'll grow and change little by little naturally just as any person does as they age and gain experiences with the world. Hasn't been a problem for us, but I'd be weary of basing tulpas too closely on characters with actual traumatic histories, because that's never fun to rub up against for the tulpa in question.

[ringgggg]

Hi, friends. I'd like to put it out there that this is A3's first time proxying on the Internet, so we might as well start things off with this little survey. I'll put down my interpretations of what she's saying to me, so I guess you wouldn't call it true proxying. That being said, let's get ahead to all the nice details.

 

1. What is your name, and what is the name of the character you were based on? (If it's different)

The name A3 is, like my username, a cover-up for her real-life name. I guess it wouldn't matter all too much if I leaked out her actual name, but it's fun to keep around and we both like the idea of identity preservation on the Internet. She says that it'd feel awkward to have her actual name being shot around online 24-7.

 

2. Were you based on a character your host created? If so, why did your host create that character? If not, what media did the character come from?

She tells me that she is the character that I think of. She first spoke through the clay doll that was representative of the form and personality she took after. She reminds me that I did not have any intentions of "basing the character" around anything when I first started. It was just her and I, the cartoon that I had come to be familiar with drawing, personified.

 

I don't think of her as being based off my drawings, I think of my drawings being based off of her.

 

3. Did your host explicitly set out to create a tulpa based on this character, or was it unintentional?

We've both come to terms with the fact that it was, in fact, unintentional. She tells me that it was fun for her to conversate with me back in the days of the clay doll; I know this because I remember the first conversation that we had together. There was a voice, and I chose to respond to it. My response was what made her a tulpa.

 

4. When you first became sentient did you believe that you were the same person as that character? If so, how long did it take you to see yourself as a separate person, and what was that process like?

Again, we've come to the consensus that she is the character I draw. However, her personality was a little different back in the day than what it is right now, and that was mostly the product of deviation.

 

She tells me that her nature back then was the product of a label I had assigned to her in the early days, that she existed for the sole purpose of being my friend, and that her pre-existing traits as a character had strengthened that belief. It's become apparent to her that she's become "more" than that label, having developed with emotions and thoughts that exceeded my expectations of what she was to do.

 

It was almost like a revelation to her, how the title of being "friends" didn't have to mean that every action had to be in line with what was thought of her, and she's become fairly unpredictable in that respect. Like how realizing that a person you can call a friend has a life and a worldview of their own, not specifically limited to your thoughts of what they would be.

 

5. Does the character you are based on have a tragic/difficult backstory? If so, did you carry any emotional baggage from the character's past? Do you still now?

"Yes," she says, "yes." Though she tells me that she's nonchalant about it, having had understood what it meant for her and that it may only come off as "tragic" to other people unfamiliar with the situation.

 

The transition from having a physical object representative of her to having none at all (as an effort to wean off of a potentially limiting and unhealthy tulpamancy practice) was a big benchmark in our progress and changed how both of us would interact together, even though she says that it doesn't feel any different to her.

 

I had twisted off an arm of the clay figurine that was representing her form as a way to "keep a piece of her tangible" (as stupid as it sounds), and it ultimately led to the decision of that being reflected in her design. Her missing arm is a reminder that we can never turn back from practicing better forcing habits, and that "we have nowhere to go but up," as she puts it.

 

6. Related, does that character's past still "feel" like your past even if you know it isn't?

I had never intended to make a backstory for her when first drawing the character, and that her time spent being a tulpa is her only story. Both of us don't dwell on it that much because that question has already been answered years prior.

 

7. Did it feel like it took a while to "step out of the character's shadow"? Have you ever felt pressure to act, look, or think like the character?

She says no.

 

8. How far have you deviated from the personality of the character you were based on? Are there any aspects of the character that you still hold onto?

"Not a lot, but I still hold onto some of my most defining traits, because that's what defines me as a person." It took a while for me to recognize the new things she was doing, but when I finally did I only griped about it when they created issues. I understood that this was her form of developing into her own person, so I was pretty cool with that. I saw a little bit of past me reflected in her, and I took respect in how she was creating her road just like how I had.

 

She tells me to type that she's happy that I thought of her in that regard.

 

9. What's your honest opinion about the character you were based on?

"Well, I have to have some respect for myself," she says.

 

10. Are you glad that your host based you on that character? Do you wish they hadn't? Or are you more "it is what it is" about the whole thing?

I wouldn't change a thing, and neither would A3.

 

 

11. What's your opinion on tulpas based on characters in general? Do you think hosts should create tulpas based on characters, or is it better to create tulpas from scratch?

Haven't really formed one for myself, but I'd say it's whatever you think of it.

 

12. Any words of advice to tulpamancers thinking about creating a tulpa based on a character, or to other tulpas based on characters?

Don't be lazy, and don't be stupid either. Basing a tulpa off of a character is not some lazy shortcut to progress because you suddenly know how they'd act when getting ice cream or taking a hike or whatever. They're not gonna stay the same, and chances are they may end up liking a different flavor of ice cream than what you previously thought was cookies and cream.

 

They're still tulpas. You'll still have to put in some effort, even if it's just talking to each other right before bed, like A3 and I do, before we forget all the philosophical insights we made in that period of time after we wake up in the morning.

 

A3 tells me to reference the Dunning-Kruger effect here. If you don't know what it is, Google says that it's the reason why stupid people think they're so smart. Don't try to be smart about things. Chances are you're gonna make mistakes, and the rectification of those mistakes is what really proves your knowledge.

 

This was super fun to do for both of us. Safe to say we'll probably be doing this more often than not. A3 already wants a peek into the Tulpas-Only Chat.

Edited March 4 by ringgggg