PSA: Don't Call People Roleplayers

[Aarix]

Derp and Kiahdaj took all of my words. I'm not a fan of someone who has more tulpas than they can give proper attention too. From all of the posts I read I feel like its a cheesy tulpa sitcom. I'm truly sorry for everything that has happened to link. But for the love of all get a better grip of your head, all of this "drama" thats not needed takes some credibiity of the site away. Someone new to tulpas will see that and accuse you of having an overactive and a little twisted imagination and take 0 of it seriously. And I haven't heard anyone accuse of of roleplaying unless it was on the irc or tumblr. Either way, become a little more humble and spend less time online and more on giving them energy. And if you truly need help where you feel the situation is out of control talk to a few people 1 on 1. Just please, take it easy!

[fennecfoxx]

I have two things to say here:

 

1. This was not sparked by Derp's post on my PR. It was mostly sparked by the large amount of negative messages I've been receiving on tumblr lately.

 

2. This was a PSA, not an attempt to start an argument. I do not wish to argue with anybody here.

[Guest Anonymous]

Fennec, you reference tumblr once in the OP and didn't respond to my own post in your PR. I made the assumption and that is an error on my part. The timing of this is rather flawless, I must say. My points still stand, and if you don't want to discuss them so be it.

[Sands]

I was about to write a lot more about this, but people already said most of what I want to say. So, kudos.

 

You might want to think of one reason why people call someone a roleplayer though. Let's see. Many roleplayers claim they do many stupid things and more often than not, their tuppers are the ones who are suffering because of it. Some people are cruel and say they just make tuppers to rape and such. And that's horrible. We can't do anything to stop them from doing that, if it's true. There is absolutely nothing we could do and we have to live with that fact. So, it's easier to say they're roleplaying and believe they are. Hope that there is no tupper they could actually be hurting. That's the only way you can live with all these stories and sleep at night, because there's just not a damn thing you could do to help the tupper. Hopefully they don't actually exist so they don't have to go through all of that. No one should be forced in a life like that, but again, what are we going to do? Call the cops? Good luck with that. I'll just keep on living in my dreamland where people like that don't actually exist and apologize to all the tuppers I couldn't ever help. Hopefully they'll find peace, if they are real and going through all that. But I can't help and I know that. I'll wash my hands off of it and won't think about the horrors, ignorance is bliss.

 

And, another thing. Another bad thing about roleplaying that hurts others, not just our community in the eyes of outsiders. No, that would be easy. It also hurts our community itself and their tuppers. Lemme tell you a story. So, there's a dude, old tupperforcer, been here since the beginning more or less, working on their tuppers. They're vocal and all, not much else, but that was enough. For now. Well, then there were the roleplaying channels, and I mean roleplaying like actual roleplaying. Where the hosts and tuppers alike just cyber and pretend to do things with /me and stuff. And where they decide they want to make a new tupper and change their nick to the new tupper's name immediately and start roleplaying. Ridiculous stuff is said there, good laughs are to be had, but at one point this tupperforcer starts thinking. They thought they were better than them and actually had tuppers, but then the doubts came. What did they have the roleplayers didn't? Well, both tuppers could talk. That was it. The old tupperforcer didn't have anything else down, so the doubts got stronger. What if they didn't actually have tuppers? What if they were just like the roleplayers? Well, then they wanted to work even harder. They wanted proof that they're more, that they're not just something the host parrots to make them answer. They wanted hallucinations, they worked on those, tried possession, had some luck with some of the stuff but not much. They worked hard and to them, basically got nothing, no proof. More doubts.

 

So, host says their tuppers weren't real then. They couldn't have been. They couldn't do the stuff others could, so it was just like the roleplayers parroting their tuppers. So they thought at least. A person could easily then say that every possible tupper is fake, not just their own, but let's not go there now. The point is, if this person had tuppers and they probably did, and lemme bold this, roleplayers caused enough doubts in a good host to cause the death of two tuppers. Two tuppers I knew. Not my friends, but the host was a person I knew and the tuppers we had talked to before. Gone. Quit. No more tuppers, no more tupperforcer. And when I talked about this story yesterday, another person said a lot of these feelings they had themselves as well and were basically quitting tuppers. Perhaps someone says if this is enough doubt for a host to quit, they wouldn't be good hosts in the future. Maybe, maybe not. But it's the tuppers who suffered and it wasn't the hosts who caused the doubts. Before they were doing fine even if they didn't have any proof, because they could trust other hosts and their stories. They trusted their words and believed that they had tuppers. That's not the case anymore. I know two tuppers have died already because of this, because I saw it happen. The number could be much, much bigger. And that's a terrifying thought.

[Guest mule]

Shut up fennec, you filthy RPer.

[Guest Anonymous]

Shut up fennec, you filthy RPer.

 

I peed a little bit.

[Chupi]

Well, then there were the roleplaying channels, and I mean roleplaying like actual roleplaying. Where the hosts and tuppers alike just cyber and pretend to do things with /me and stuff. And where they decide they want to make a new tupper and change their nick to the new tupper's name immediately and start roleplaying.

I'm not sure which channel you're referring to, but I've seen this sort of thing. If you just make up a character, /nick and start "channeling" what the character might say, that isn't a tulpa. It's a useful tool for character development, generally fun, and if you stick with the character long enough and think in the right way, they might form into a tulpa.

 

They thought they were better than them and actually had tuppers, but then the doubts came. What did they have the roleplayers didn't? Well, both tuppers could talk. That was it. The old tupperforcer didn't have anything else down, so the doubts got stronger. What if they didn't actually have tuppers? What if they were just like the roleplayers? Well, then they wanted to work even harder. They wanted proof that they're more, that they're not just something the host parrots to make them answer. They wanted hallucinations, they worked on those, tried possession, had some luck with some of the stuff but not much. They worked hard and to them, basically got nothing, no proof. More doubts.

Talking to young tulpas online who seem more vocal than mine were has caused me doubts in the past as well. I can see that mentally writing off these hosts as roleplayers and wannabes can be a useful way for some to deal with this doubt. Then I realized a few things:

• It depends on the starting point. Subsequent tulpas form a lot quicker than firsts. Some have a fast first one, but they often have experience with related things like imaginary friends or character creation, or are simply good ad observing their thoughts. Despite having never created something that became independent, they likely had things that came close to becoming a tulpa.
  
• Some people are good at shutting up their thoughts and translating into words the thoughts from their tulpa. Then there's people like me whose own thoughts keep interfering with this translation, making reliable communication take more effort on both the host's part and the tulpa's. So, if you have two hosts with equally sapient and vocal tulpas, one might carry on effortless conversations while the other struggles to get single sentences. They will rank their tulpas as being at different levels of vocality.
  
• Talking to a tulpa over IRC can make them appear more vocal than they really are. When their messages appear mixed in with messages from other hosts and from yourself, it's hard not to think of these messages being transcribed by the host as effortlessly as his own thoughts. In reality, they may well be going through the same difficulty as you.
  

 

The point is, if this person had tuppers and they probably did, and lemme bold this, roleplayers caused enough doubts in a good host to cause the death of two tuppers.

True, the RPing caused the doubts that led to this guy quitting. But it did not cause the death of his tulpas. He did.

 

I have had more than my fair share of doubts. They can come from anywhere and everywhere. At times when my mental state is such that I can clearly tell which thoughts are coming from who, it's very clear that my tulpas are alive and well. At other times when I haven't been able to distinguish so clearly and all the thoughts felt about the same, it was hard not to think I was just fooling myself when I would remind myself of the times it worked so easily.

 

The difference is that I choose to work through doubts when they come up, instead of quitting.

---

 

Additionally, I am not sure how "dead" a tulpa is when a host gives up. Kerin comes to mind.

[Guest]

-----

[Sands]

I'm not sure which channel you're referring to, but I've seen this sort of thing. If you just make up a character, /nick and start "channeling" what the character might say, that isn't a tulpa. It's a useful tool for character development, generally fun, and if you stick with the character long enough and think in the right way, they might form into a tulpa.

 

It isn't a tupper. Doesn't stop them from calling them tuppers. And that's the dangerous part.

 

True, the RPing caused the doubts that led to this guy quitting. But it did not cause the death of his tulpas. He did.

 

And I didn't say that the roleplayers caused the death of that dude's tuppers. I said they caused the doubts, like you said. The seed that wouldn't have been there without them. Dead or not, the tuppers are gone now. Perhaps forever ignored, if they can't die. A fate worse than death, but of course in the host's eyes, they never were so it doesn't matter. They have no feelings. Because his tuppers were just like the roleplayed ones. Mere parroted characters without any actual feelings or opinions.

 

I don't think this is the only case or will stay as the only case. The roleplaying that actually happens is dangerous from so many different points of views that it should stop. Others have said majority of what I wanted to say about it, I gave my two cents with an actual story I saw happening. It will happen again. Who are we going to blame? Hell, I could only blame myself for letting this kind of shit happen.

[Chupi]

It isn't a tupper. Doesn't stop them from calling them tuppers. And that's the dangerous part.

I said if you stick with it long enough, it *may* become one. You roleplay and with time the responses come easier and easier, until they happen fully automatically and you have to put in a definite effort to make them not come. Eventually they can get so you can't repress the thoughts from the character, deviation, own thoughts, etc. That sounds like a tulpa to me.

 

I don't think this is the only case or will stay as the only case. The roleplaying that actually happens is dangerous from so many different points of views that it should stop. Others have said majority of what I wanted to say about it, I gave my two cents with an actual story I saw happening. It will happen again. Who are we going to blame? Hell, I could only blame myself for letting this kind of shit happen.

Or instead of griping about this, we could better waste spend our time coming up with ways to help people insulate themselves from these doubts, because this is hardly the only source of them. Really, if it's not one thing it'll be another, and we can't stick newbie 'mancers in a bubble and protect them from everything potentially harmful until their tulpas are strong enough.