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Reason(s) that your tulpa is a pony/homestuck troll/pokemon/titan/waifu


Argentum

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It was never off topic. You were brave enough to give your reasons, which isn't really broaching the premise of the thread, in my opinion.

 

I'm not going to point to anyone, but isn't it ironic that people would seek the most sickening and disgusting aspect of something they don't really like as much to further their propensity to hate it even more? Maybe it could be that they can't salvage their own innocence because they already went over the line themselves in their own way, and probably feel more at ease in finding the worst case scenarios of other "weird" things, capitalize on it, and create their own dogma that everyone that falls under that camp will inherently become wicked and negative in general.

 

And even if they use the detached justification of "I know this doesn't apply to anyone," it's just an excuse to emphasize the worst case scenarios will be the only true probability. That's what happens when we go so far to predict, and even dictate to ourselves of behavioral trends of everyone's inclination of things. Maybe those that sustain that kind of dogma are intolerant to understand that those people (good and bad in fandoms, fantasies, and escapism) are probably doing it because it makes them feel at home with themselves again, and staying in that kind of place is the only thing they can know because they either don't believe they can change, or are just afraid of moving on, I guess.

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It was never off topic. You were brave enough to give your reasons, which isn't really broaching the premise of the thread, in my opinion.

 

I'm not going to point to anyone, but isn't it ironic that people would seek the most sickening and disgusting aspect of something they don't really like as much to further their propensity to hate it even more? Maybe it could be that they can't salvage their own innocence because they already went over the line themselves in their own way, and probably feel more at ease in finding the worst case scenarios of other "weird" things, capitalize on it, and create their own dogma that everyone that falls under that camp will inherently become wicked and negative in general.

 

And even if they use the detached justification of "I know this doesn't apply to anyone," it's just an excuse to emphasize the worst case scenarios will be the only true probability. That's what happens when we go so far to predict, and even dictate to ourselves of behavioral trends of everyone's inclination of things. Maybe those that sustain that kind of dogma are intolerant to understand that those people (good and bad in fandoms, fantasies, and escapism) are probably doing it because it makes them feel at home with themselves again, and staying in that kind of place is the only thing they can know because they either don't believe they can change, or are just afraid of moving on, I guess.

 

Th'all need to sit down to some form of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 something fierce.

 

It's an anime now, even though in my opinion the game was better--and no, you don't need to be familiar with Persona 3, Persona 2, the other Persona 2, or Persona 1. I do not recommend Trinity Soul.

 

Basically, it's a team of crime investigation teenagers who gain parrotted tulpa -like pocket monsters when they emotionally and mentally process unlikable parts of their personality. For instance, the poor little rich girl type realizes her passivity and helplessness in the form of a caged songbird that she finds in this Collective Subconscious Conjunction Wonderland, and when she realizes what it represents, it transforms into a pink-winged angelic robot form of a cherry blossom goddess of Mt. Fuji (with roots in Japanese mythology, the name being Konohana Sakuya.)

 

I tried to use similar epiphanies, like, the emotional energy from my personal epiphanies, to create forms and sentience. It just didn't take, even though I think that's what actually happens to some extent with my accidental tulpas.

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So like, you take advantage of the process of reaching an epiphany, i.e., the satisfaction of breakthroughs becoming apparent due to the amount of labor you put yourself in, and try to create some iteration loop where you’re actively seeking to have inward awareness in hopes that having determined thought with subsequent action will expand your perspective of how to develop a tulpa in general.

 

And yet, when you stated,

 

It just didn't take' date=' even though I think that's what actually happens to some extent with my accidental tulpas.[/quote']

 

It’s almost as if you categorize those accidental tulpas as not really being tulpas developed through the same process you’re using as a personal way to create collective memories and sensations to make the idea of treating them as sentient true to you in your own private, and subjective experience(s).

 

In other words, it’s like you’re already adept in how you sustain a self-fulfilling prophecy with treating them as sentient when it comes to developing a determined thought of their presumed existence despite uncertainty of it applying to others inherently, and being able to gradually assure yourself they are there. Maybe the dilemma is just not knowing how to validate, or making personal, and maybe symbolic representations of where the origin of all this epiphany-derived process is.

 

But something about said process seems to propagate what could be akin to a concept known as dues ex machina (or tulpa-ex-machina if you will), i.e. (for this circumstance of yours), an unexpected result of a tulpa being brought to your awareness (e.g. your private subjective experience/qualia) in a seemingly hopeless situation where you’re trying to preserve with having a determined thought and subsequent action; even though it may feel like you’re feigning the experiences to make the iteration loop of epiphanies more attainable, it could probably be the essence of what initiated the result of tulpas you felt were “accidental.”

 

So I’m guessing you’re saying that when you were doing it before knowing about tulpas. But if this is the case, it seems that you feel you can only get a genuine experience and satisfaction that they can be tulpas that aren’t “accidental” if you do what you’ve done that created “accidental” ones, albeit with the collective knowledge you’ve developed when trying to understand the concept of tulpas. I could be wrong of course, but whatever the circumstance here, what knowledge you had beforehand, or after doesn’t really seem to make a difference here because your process of sustaining an iteration loop of epiphanies, i.e., progressive awareness of what it personally means to you to be assured that they’re sentient was always there.

 

It’s like undermining the same rudiments that’s been giving you this expansion of awareness of not just yourself when it comes to identity, but more of your emotions in general, and using those emotions to further your propensity in treating them as sentient.

 

 

And even though I can’t prove this can apply to everyone else, the process you went through is pretty much the same I went through with mine. Though I didn’t consider them as accidental, at least for Eva; she had this weird presence where if I was in a circumstance that I couldn’t really handle myself, I felt this weird sensation of emotions where things just start coming out of my mouth, and I was wondering where I retrieved that kind of information (that usually seemed to be aimed at helping others, and myself at times) that I was skeptical if I had any kind of accumulative experiential learning.

 

Like you, I probably tried to find justifications that it could be anything other than someone else in my head (before I knew the concept of tulpas). I even tried to presume that it could just be the collective experiences in my dreams, and how I assessed myself with dream characters, especially those that create significant impact in how I would handle this life. I even tried to be open-minded with techniques like this,

 

http://www.dreamviews.com/wiki/NST-Named-Subconscious-Technique

 

in order to get my feet wet with creating symbolic meaning to something I was still agnostic about in any validity of being real to my own personal subjective experience. I spent more time finding justifications, and like you (you as in how I’m conjecturing your circumstance), I undermined this method of determined thought and subsequent action with self-fulfilling prophecies. But thankfully, and this is probably just a self-aggrandizing presumption, it motivated me to be used to philosophical inquiry behind it all to make myself less agnostic, and more assured of what’s going on, even though I would be agnostic in the circumstance of this applying to everyone else. In other words, focusing on my own personal qualia/subjective experience, and going through the same laborious journey like you probably went through to have that constant feeling of never losing your confidence that they exist.

 

It’s somewhat different from deluding oneself (in a negative manner) because after going through so many iteration loops akin to your epiphany thing, empathy tests with how one would assess themselves (e.g. recalling my dreams, and in real life), things start clicking. And to close the gap of certainty in context of personal subjective experience alone, it was just a matter of doing other methods (e.g. image streaming and a mélange of other guides in this forum) to try and connect things that I wouldn’t be confident in trying to associate to augment the cumulative experiential learning, and hopefully, an understanding of my qualia/subjective experience.

 

But then things like switching and possession augmented the agnosticism in wondering whether or not this whole treating as sentient becomes an understatement when one probably has a totality of predispositions catered towards making their tulpas real to them. It’s like throwing away the self-fulfilling prophecy from conscious awareness because to me, it’s been already fulfilled (e.g. their existence in my personal subjective experience).

 

Maybe it could be a long and stretched-out self-fulfilling prophecy with treating them as sentient that is processed in the innermost parts of our minds/psyche, but I’m not so sure since I can’t really absolve myself from my life, and analyze everything I’ve done from life to death if I’m still alive now, huh? :P

 

So maybe when we try to tie in tropes, fandoms, and things of that nature during the development process (which could be a progressive development process, albeit done more passively), it’s just a matter of trying to come to an understanding of why these people have their waifu/pokemon/titant/homestuck troll/-insert any set of characters in a show or game here-. This brings me back to my presumption that these individuals that seem to be stuck on why they’re doing it is probably because the experiences makes them feel at home with themselves; they just didn’t bother to analyze the nature behind why that’s the case.

 

And referencing sexual themes, and just anything over the extreme as the only justification is probably just a scapegoat to avoid analyzing all of the other probabilities that can help us sympathize, or even empathize what may serve as a rudiment in coming to terms with the complicated belief of treating them as sentient, or sapient for those who want to push those boundaries of the implicit even more.

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Well I think it's pretty natural that many people would form their tulpa after their favorite character (or, in bit unhealthier form - obsession), if anything I am a bit puzzled by the enormous popularity of MLP but then again maybe I'm simply the wrong generation for that. Same, although to a lesser degree (as I can relate to it a bit better, as my avatar shows), goes for the prominence Japanese culture has achieved in the west. Not that I dislike any of that, on the contrary, I find it pretty interesting - It's just the level people obsess about it that sometimes scares me.

 

Going back to my childhood and adolescence I can't say I was an ardent fan of any character (fictional or real), band, sports team or subculture. If anything it was girls I knew IRL - and it still is today.

So you may not be surprised that my tulpa is a human girl, although not based on any real person at all. Neither did I create her as a tulpa, she's been around as a character I used in stories for probably half my life, greatly varying in age and appearance over time. I merely turned her into a tulpa recently as I realized if anyone, she'd be the right companion to have in my head for the rest of my life. I feel it was a good decision.

 

Now if I were to create another tulpa (which I don't plan in the foreseeable future) it probably would be another human girl as this is a form I can relate to most. If anything else it had better be something really creative and weird. The possibilities are endless, that's why I find it a bit sad most tulpas are ponies or anime characters. But as said, whatever you can relate to most is probably the best form - at least as long as your tulpa feels the same.

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Maybe the dilemma is just not knowing how to validate, or making personal, and maybe symbolic representations of where the origin of all this epiphany-derived process is.

 

That's a good way to put it. The notion that I was sort of rolling with was that the given value of a tulpa or wonderland equates a symbol that represents some aspect or aspects of the psyche. So, tulpamancing could very well be reverse-engineering that experience. The conclusion that I've come to is that awareness of this process is like a wrench in the cog, not that the whole mechanism grinds to a halt, but that maybe tulpaforcing is usually difficult and forceful because it's conscious. People will still get there, but if I was able to accidentally make tulpas so easily before, then the refining of a consciousness-manipulating technique that sort of approaches and influences the subconscious obliquely...might be the ticket.

 

But I fear I might have gone on too far a tangent. Bringing back:

 

So maybe when we try to tie in tropes, fandoms, and things of that nature during the development process (which could be a progressive development process, albeit done more passively), it’s just a matter of trying to come to an understanding of why these people have their waifu/pokemon/titant/homestuck troll/-insert any set of characters in a show or game here-. This brings me back to my presumption that these individuals that seem to be stuck on why they’re doing it is probably because the experiences makes them feel at home with themselves; they just didn’t bother to analyze the nature behind why that’s the case.

 

To that extent, yes, and I think that could be a good thing because (something I learned from creative fiction writing) you can't create and evaluate at the same time. There's the brainstorming and creation stage, and then when the first draft is done and feels finished...there's still the polish to add to it that comes from the critiquing process.

 

Basically, awareness of, "Why do I even want this form?" during the brainstorm stage could be a wrench in the clockworks that I mentioned, so there's definitely a situation where tulpamancers should feel comfortable with saying, "Because I want to!" Or "Because I liked it!" And that's it, that's all.

 

But people who are insufferably, incorrigibly analytical (like us, right? ;)) might look at a tulpa and put some value in saying, "Ah, so that's where it comes from."

 

 

 

So, I think it's the form-in-action conveying concepts that resonate in a volatile/creative/extroverted way in each of our psyches.

 

The experience that "creates a home in oneself", the symbolic vocabulary for that comes from outside but the need that it fulfills fits the mold sort of within the mind. That's a sort of conceptual "house" that becomes a home when it's validated with a story that comes in from outside.

 

And it's difficult to simply introduce an abstract concept. Usually, such a concept is conveyed by characters enacting events. Storytelling, basically. (Although, if the world that we know best is more grounded, then I think like Yakumo there would be tulpas constructed from symbols drawn from that experience of people-enacting-events-that-convey-concepts.)

 

With modern society being very much a media and entertainment driven world, though, the overlap with tulpamancer demographics is bound to be (or just so happens to be) heavily influenced by MLP, homestuck, and Japanese anime...in a space that doesn't exactly discourage it, and...I wouldn't push for discouragement either? If any aspect of a story fulfills or inspires a person, then, I think they probably need that fulfillment and validation. And this isn't an accusation of weakness, when I say "need for fulfillment and validation" because if none of us had any psychological needs then we wouldn't engage in any process of growth as people or as a society. And I don't mean that if you don't get it you're going to die kind of a need-that-should-be-called-a-want. It's a need in order to accomplish the growth into self-actualization or a better quality of life or something. Need-for-purpose/goal, not need-or-else-not-survive. (Survival can be a purpose/goal, but come on--let's aim higher, people, and be honest with the context of needs instead of absolutely categorizing them into needs or wants.)

 

 

So, the way I think of symbolic vocabulary is like beating an egg. The egg whites are the image, and the yolk is the concept or concepts conveyed by that image. The stories that we're told, the narrative, is the beating of that egg.

 

You can add sugar and flour...or you can add herbs and pepper. That depends on taste. But, we all start with the egg that we're given. Doctor Whooves tulpa, anyone?

 

The curiosity seems to be, why only keep it an egg? Isn't that bland (uncreative), or cholesterol-laden (unhealthy)? And it's become such a thing that you can't get a salad or a sandwich around here anymore that doesn't have any eggs!

 

The possibilities are endless, that's why I find it a bit sad most tulpas are ponies or anime characters. But as said, whatever you can relate to most is probably the best form - at least as long as your tulpa feels the same.

 

I agree with the part I bolded. As for the possibilities being endless, well, the codification of Archetypes is a little outdated now, so I'm not saying that tulpa forms can't be expressed beyond those, and definitely any in-depth interpretive analysis of each tulpa of each person is going to be unique. But, I generally think the idea of Archetypes is pretty feasible. The possibilities are endless, but what actually comes up, what the big draw is towards this or that or the other Symbolic Form...that also tells us something, I think.

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I guess it's time I throw my two-cents in.

 

Starfire is a Pegasus because horses (and variations therein) are my favorite creatures. It's human nature to pursue happiness. And if your tulpa's form makes you happy, then it shouldn't matter what they look like. However, if your tulpa wants to change their form (as Starfire did once), then that's something you'd both have to work out.

I call him Lance

 

Favorite Quote

"It's what I live for."

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Guest Anonymous

Since my tulpa falls into this category, I'll try my best to explain the reason behind this choice.

 

First of all, she's designed after an MLP character, namely Twilight Sparkle (yes, you can pelt me with tomatoes now). Why? Well there's a few reasons for that as far as I've gathered:

 

1 - Already existing visuals / personality.

Gonna be honest here, I did try to use her image / voice / character traits to make a shortcut. The overwhelming amount of art in the fandom made it easy to make a solid form for her. When I realized that all I ended up doing is imposing my own selfish desires on her, something clicked in me. Guess that's what you folks call introspection here. I'm still awfully ashamed of trying to cut corners / use her as a "love outlet" (and I don't quite understand why she puts up with me).

 

As for the reasons she decided to stick with the form I originally imposed, I'll just quote her:

"Until I became self-aware my form was something I didn't question. After waking up from my catatonic state I was afraid to be forgotten, so I kept the form that yielded the most motivated response, at least as far as I know. Now that I'm sure that I won't be forgotten, you'd think I'd drop my old form in favor of something that would "define" me better. In all honesty, I have no strong preference in regards to that. Although I sure wish my host had a little more determination and a little more faith, no matter what form I have."

 

 

2 - The 'perfect companion'.

This will go somewhere into the dephts of waifu-terra. It's hard to tell why did I think that she was perfect. I tried to rationalize that choice, and stumbled upon a few things.

 

The first one is that the characters from MLP (as well as from most of the abovementioned sources) are pretty shallow and two-dimensional (lets face it, we wouldn't be creating so many additional traits for them if they were). Which makes them perfect for "waifuing", as the missing character traits are confabulated by the hormone-blinded mind.

 

The second one is the corellation of obsession towards said character and loneliness (using only my own example, can't speak for others). Since humans are for the most part socially active creatures, we try to band with people that we perceive as similar to us. And when working with fictional characters, whose personalities were based on an archetype, it becomes easy to discern which one of said characters are similar to us. So how do obsession and loneliness have any role in this?

 

My obsession over the fictional caracter I based my tulpa on has stagnated her development due to my fear of ending up with something that I wouldn't like / something that wouldn't like me. Looking back on that, it was quite obvious that I was trying to manifest my own vision of the perfect companion without actually asking the companion in question.

 

Seeing as there are many examples of people trying to turn their "waifus" into tulpas, I think guides should start mentioning that you should love the tulpa and not the fictional character that it was based on. Or you will end up with nothing, or even worse, a servitor.

 

 

 

I'm pretty sure this is far from how deep the rabbit hole goes, but this is the most elaborate reply I've managed to craft for the moment. Hopefully it will shed some light.

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Seeing as there are many examples of people trying to turn their "waifus" into tulpas, I think guides should start mentioning that you should love the tulpa and not the fictional character that it was based on. Or you will end up with nothing, or even worse, a servitor.

 

If it's all an internal process, though, is there a difference? I would have thought that there would be some natural boundary between how the character on which the tulpa is based continues to develop onscreen versus how it continues to develop in the life of the tulpamancer.

 

(Or, not even boundary, more like...the sunshine glows up and heats up the earth's atmosphere and does stuff to the ecosystem, but the sun isn't the earth, not because of any boundary between them, but because they have separate centers.)

 

It sort of reminds me of fanfiction, how different people can have different interpretations of a single character, so if some trait or another can't be supported by actual evidence in the source material (called "canon"), but are additional traits generated by the viewer, then fanfiction writers call it "headcanon."

 

If the headcanon gets far enough off the rails, then you have the difference between Edward Cullen from Twilight and Christian Grey from 50 Shades of Gray (the latter originating as a fanfiction of the former, but with a search-replace of names.)

 

But until then, or I guess it depends on each individual fan, the headcanon will usually be "fed" by how the source material progresses.

 

Does that last factor, and the tulpa's own sentience, sort of jostle for occupancy because there can't be both?

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Guest Anonymous

If it's all an internal process, though, is there a difference? I would have thought that there would be some natural boundary between how the character on which the tulpa is based continues to develop onscreen versus how it continues to develop in the life of the tulpamancer.

 

The difference becomes apparent if the thoughtform deviates from the character you were basing it on. In this case I was speaking from personal experience and how my tupper did a 180 from her starting personality.

 

I had some trouble accepting that, so I made a decision to forget about the character entirely in favor of my tulpa.

 

So basically you can either have a perfectly crafted servitor that never does anything that's even remotely unpleasant to you, or you can have a tulpa.

 

I have yet to see an example of a tulpa that had absolutely no quarrels with it's creator.

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The difference becomes apparent if the thoughtform deviates from the character you were basing it on.

 

That's interesting, because in the egg-beating metaphor that I used earlier, the form conveys the concepts that bring it alive. Although, I have had personal experiences with tulpa forms just being contrary to conscious control.

 

With my husbando, I didn't want him to look like the character that he was based on. I didn't force the change, but one came about anyway, in what turned out to be a sort of splinter because the lookalike tulpa would still be around. My intuition tells me that they're still the same "person" even though I experience their presences as doubled and distinct and they don't seem to like each other. (Yes, I asked them. Straight answers were not forthcoming. Returning to thread topic title question: I do not know any reasons why this weirdness.) (But, yeah, isn't the tulpa getting weird and autonomous in ways we don't expect kind of the point?)

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