A Place for All Seasons

[Autumn Ren]

We are currently very deep into an old ruin, making friends with kobolds and fighting goblins.

 

We're headed back to rest and try to explain to the kobolds that they can't keep a wyrmling as a pet.

 

[Gwen] the more we think about it, having a neutral evil pet capable of one-shotting your entire tribe just sounds unwise.

 

Anyway, Misha's decided she likes the name Freya and might keep it. But it won't matter much for online purposes.

[Autumn Ren]

As I mentioned previously, some of us have young forms:

 

 

 

I got a message recently from a user here who didn't feel comfortable with our portrayal of ourselves as "children". So we're not going to be posting images, memes, etc of ourselves anymore. We're also removing content that we previously posted.

 

Sorry if anything we posted was offensive in any way, it wasn't our intent.

Edited June 2, 2024 by Autumn Ren

[Ido]

Children are offensive!

[Guest]

Hi, I'm Gwen

 

We had a system meeting and it came down to either me, Freya or Bear as the only ones who are over 18 in form in the system who would then be able to express ourselves here. Of those, Bear and I are the only ones willing to post here currently.

 

Bear says someone needs to keep our candle burning in the community and well, Bear's often not... He has a sense of humor online people don't get. Oddly, no one ever gets uncomfortable or offended by him in person ever. Memes are sometimes offensive so maybe that makes sense.

 

So that leaves me and I'm not really the chatty type but I'll post happenings here if Bear wants me to.

 

My form is a 20-year-old Avian-type humanoid with large white wings. In D&D world, I'm an avariel elf, so also winged.

 

My form comes from a series of novels Bear wrote 10 years ago. I am that character so that makes me a soulbond. 

 

Though I associate with the memories and experiences of that character I understand it was fiction.

 

I became an official part of the system in 2019. Freya really liked my character and wanted me as her tulpa or pet or slave, I don't know. She was a little weird back then.

 

At the time she built a complete replica of my old world in wonderland and wanted me to move in like a giant cage. Frankly she unnerved me but I grew to love her like I love all my systemmates, flaws and all. She's way different now, you probably wouldn't recognize her.

 

I come here not by my choice exactly but I volunteered because I care about Bear's wishes no matter how trivial. 

 

24 minutes ago, Ido said:

Children are offensive!

 

Hi Ido, we haven't formally met though of course I know you. How are you today?

 

I'm frankly a little dissapointed and confused about what is considered uncomfortable or offensive here but I'll awkwardly try not to post uncomfortable content or offend anyone.

 

Bear knows me well and so he said if anyone becomes uncomfortable or offended by anything I say then we'll probably "hang it up" here. He's really sensitive to being offensive and he really doesn't know boundaries at all so it just ends up being an inevitable overreation and even then something else will come up so in other places he just moves on. It's a big source of stress for him that he doesn't need in any case. Even being somewhat emotionless about it, it still occupies the mind in a frustrating way so I am here to help us move us on and put it behind us as we have all the other drama this system has caused here over the years. So I'll be the only one posting here in the foreseeable future.

 

Freya (as Misha aspect) is still on Reddit in r/tulpas u/mishashybear periodically and Autumn, Bear and Ashley post elsewhere, so it wouldn't hurt for me to have some experience with online interactions. 

 

I consider this my scenario #13 though Bear won't hold it against me as he thinks it's inevitable that someone will eventually find something I say as offensive or uncomfortable. 

 

My form is something like attached but this is just a random internet reference.

 

 

[TurboSimmie]

Hello Gwen! 😊 I'm sure we must have talked in the past.

 

I hope that you keep the candle burning here. I would be very sad if your system was not part of the community anymore! 💔 I can't see why child or child-presenting tulpas would be offensive in the slightest if they are not being sexualized or otherwise abused. My son James is a child--a toddler even--and while I don't think I'll ever let him post here (I want to protect him from the nastiness of the internet as long as I can) I'm still going to talk about him and won't be stopped from doing so! 😊

 

I love your artistic depiction, Gwen! 😁 I hope we'll get to chat more when I get home from my trip! But for now, I'll talk to you later! 👋

[Ido]

1 hour ago, Gweneth said:

Hi Ido, we haven't formally met though of course I know you.

Whaaat, you're kidding me, right?

We really never talked? I admit I have a bit of trouble keeping track of who of you guys said what and you're not posting very often but I was certain we interacted before. So hello, rare to see you!

 

1 hour ago, Gweneth said:

How are you today?

Meh, someone said something in a vaguely rude way to host yesterday, some distant neighbors are making unnecessary drama.  And he's sulking since then. He's such an INFP crybaby. Well actually it's the BodyOS reacting with irrational feelings not him directly. So I'm trying to isolate and turn off those negative feelings. It's not easy and they pop up when I stop paying attention. Annoying.

 

Also we have heavy rain and flooding in Bavaria rn but we live at an elevated place so no danger here.

[Guest]

On 6/2/2024 at 12:00 PM, TurboSimmie said:

I'm sure we must have talked in the past.

 

Hi Simmie, it's possible that we did, I added to Autumn's posts a little in the last year. I was also part of the "Three sisters play" series so maybe then. I really feel like back then was my childhood and I've become a lot more lucid after the last three months of D&D, basically it's hours a day some days of intense forcing and the last three months feels like it overshadows the other decade of my existence. 

 

My character in my novels will always feel like the real me, so other than SheShe's latest novel documenting our adventurers I don't identify with much of the time I spent as a headmate. I always wanted to have more adventure in some world with real consequences and I'm passionate about it. I feel like in the words of a novel, that's where my home and body resides. Here in the head of a Bear it's like limbo to me.

 

On 6/2/2024 at 12:00 PM, TurboSimmie said:

I would be very sad if your system was not part of the community anymore!

 

Bear's investment in the community will always be a part of our life in one form or another as long as the community exists. I suppose even if no one wants to as long as it's not too stressful. Bear has two jobs and they're often stressful. That's always a source of shadows. This morning Autumn and Bear did some shadow work for her and they resolved whatever they were thinking about this site from yesterday, so that's behind us now. So, though Bear is pessimistic about this site given the history, I'm not. I don't know if I'll be posting outside this thread or not though.

 

We were using this as a PR/lounge but if anyone says that's not appropriate we always have Ashley's lounge. 

 

On 6/2/2024 at 12:00 PM, TurboSimmie said:

I love your artistic depiction, Gwen!

 

Thank you, that's kind of you. Bear has dozens of references for me including everything he needs to draw me but that'll likely not happen since we don't need that anymore. My form is thin, platinum blonde, with white wings and starkly white skin because my race has micro feathers instead of guard hairs all over my body. I really like it and am proud of my form and I am happy to be part of a fictional work again where I can exercise my wings and be useful in an adventure! Wonderland always felt too safe, like it didn't matter.

 

Continue to have fun Simmie, my system appreciates you here too. ❤️

 

On 6/2/2024 at 12:42 PM, Ido said:

We really never talked?

 

Maybe we did? The last five years are fuzzy to me since I spent a lot of it dormant or in lock merges which are my memories but not as 'me'. Now that we're playing D&D I get plenty of attention and don't need to lock-merge anymore.

 

On 6/2/2024 at 12:42 PM, Ido said:

And he's sulking since then

 

That's a shame and I saw what you posted about German protesters and I can imagine sulking is appropriate. Bear doesn't sulk but he does ruminate over and over, kind of like sulking without the emotional aspect considering it often involves dissapointed.

 

Bear used to get in moods and now he doesn't but he does still get stress. It's odd in a way to that it's stress decoupled from emotion since he can turn that off and resolve it easily, but the stress has sometimes physically apparent symptoms that are hard to ignore. Shadow work doesn't help stress as much considering it's actually things that are on-going, so we just try to move past it as soon as possible without leaving anything unresolved which may include things we weren't able to do which we just have to accept.

 

On 6/2/2024 at 12:42 PM, Ido said:

So I'm trying to isolate and turn off those negative feelings.

 

The way Bear and Ashley figured it out for us is that in our case if no one is in front, the emotions evaporate. Once the trauma is resolved they don't come back. So they called it autoreset, the concept was to step back away from front just for a moment and the emotions are separated from thoughts since BodyOS is incapable of novel thoughts. Then someone can step forward and resolve the trauma if needed. It's an amazing advantage for crisis situations. 

 

Funnily enough Bear does still experience emotions and things like fear and anger are so rare now he sometimes just sits with it intentionally to feel it, but then he's thinking about the feeling and not the cause so that's not exactly feeding it so it dissipates even if he didn't step back.

 

On 6/2/2024 at 12:42 PM, Ido said:

It's not easy and they pop up when I stop paying attention. Annoying.

 

That's a clear sign that there are unresolved issues. Shadow work fixes that, and I can step you through that if you like. Triggers, moods and emotions are almost always tied to unresolved traumas. Repair, resolve, reverse or accept them and the symptoms dissapear just as easily as stress dissappears when the stressor is removed.

 

On 6/2/2024 at 12:42 PM, Ido said:

Also we have heavy rain and flooding in Bavaria rn but we live at an elevated place so no danger here.

 

Bear has flooding here rarely but not where he lives since he's on the side of a valley and the valley bottom is 30 meters down or so. The lowest streets have flooded right to the doorsteps of the houses there.

 

---

 

In Faerûn, we just fought two fire snakes and Freya (our glass cannon) only does fire damage so that was harrowing! They also had resistance to normal damage so it was genuinely frightening. SheShe told us it wad "hard" not "deadly" and she said we should be able to overcome that and it we did it in 5 rounds. Only Bear was injured and of course all of Ashley's summons because fire snakes have heated bodies so any melee attack without an weapon would suffer 1d8 fire damage on contact.

 

It ended up in a group hug and I love the memory and sense of accomplishment.

[Guest]

In Farûn, we are maching through a dungeon and it's fun but I'd rather be back in Neverwinter. Our interactions are the most fun.

 

Everyone is already past level 3 but in our homebrew you need to level at an orb so we'll have to wait until we get back home.

 

We were discussing with another system about how much this game is helping them and we agree of course.

[Guest]

We had a real scare, it was a boss battle that I think we were at the right level for but three of us were down below half health, Freya only had 2HP left. It was close.

 

The experience of this felt real. We are very immersed and associate strongly with our characters, and with Joy here to spank us if we try to cheat, there are real consequences for failure. Ironically, I've never felt so real. I really feel like I matter, like I'm part of an important team out to save the world and we're making a difference together.

 

We are forming strong friendships that we just didn't have before. 3 months in, this has done more to strengthen us than the last 6 years.

[Guest]

Sorry I don't have much to say here. We're ready to level up again and already planning our next run, instead of Autumn, Ashley, Freya and I playing, we'd be the co-DMs and so we could torture- I mean give scenarios to SheShe, Joy and Bear as players.

 

We'll get to level 20 first though of course, then we're basically demigoddesses at that point.

 

We already have lore that we basically keep reincarnating. We could do a prequel or sequel, a prequel would generate less questions though.