#plural compilation

[is-this-plural]

danny gonzalez doing his skits

SO PLURAL!!!!

#the asks are plural #the anons are plural #mod 🐾 #i dhould watch skit compilation sometime

[symerr]

being a largely nonhuman system and wanting to make sims of your headmates... pain... have 3 people who can be human-passing if they really want to.

#simblr #the sims 4 #ts4 #ts4 cas #create a sim #show us your sims #sym jonas (he) #sym basil (any) #sym cerberus (ask/plural they) #err #this took embarrassingly long to compile... don't look @ me #jonas and basil's sims have been made for a little over a year now so they only had to be touched up #and cerberus just uses one of our orion bases with a couple adjustments for the body and face #there is no cc that would be good for cerberus though so we compromised :pensive: #also i thought that it'd be harder to pose basil since xyr wings and tail are. massive #but surprisingly xe had the most possible photo options that i had to sort through #((it helps that xe's skinny and its hellish trying to find poses not made for skinny sims kms)) #meanwhile cerberus just has the autism stance #cas err

[nestedlibrary]

hmm i was just browsing the old youtube and i had a think! what do plurals here on tumblr think of subliminals about us?

not just the ones that promise to give you or worsen a disorder, also the ones that claim to help with headmate communication, finding partner systems, getting frontstuck, etc. etc.

do we think they work? what is everyone’s feelings on subliminals and whether they are a good thing or harmful?

Feel free to go off topic! also use my askbox if you would like to remain anonymous! I’m just curious!

#nested library system #skip🖊️ #plurality #endo safe #multiplicity #library talks #pro endo #plural system #subliminal discourse? #idk! i’m just curious! #maybe i’ll compile everything into a resource about this later!

[juleteinthrum]

EVERYBODY LIKES ME

Drew my headmates over and over enough as practice that i could just edit them all together nicely to this song, fits Zim perfectly. (I am Zim.)

#zims stink #art #my art #video #edit #compilation #invader zim #fanart #invader zim fanart #zadr #headmates #osdd #actually plural #alters #zim fictive #dib fictive #everybody likes me #dumb dumb #tiktok #mashup #remix #fancam

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms Viewers' Choice #10: Us!

hooo boy. this one’s a doozy. so! one of you wanted to see us as D&D builds. and that one won the lottery, so as an early Christmas gift this month’s viewer’s choice build is actually five builds on account of the whole plurality thing. (if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, there’s a whole thing about it here: https://morethanone.info/ )

obviously the actual answer is a level 1 Expert Sidekick based on the Commoner statblock, but that’s a really boring answer. so instead we’re doing one build per headmate as if they were their own D&D character. so that means you’re getting one build each for Calamity, Victor, Cat, Jeanne, and me- Kris. this post is more of a hub for the other ones with the actual stats and all that- putting 5 whole builds on a single post would make it stupid long.

Calamity’s build already exists, but you can find it here if you missed it. (Ancients Paladin/Primeval Druid)

Victor’s build is here. (Thief Rogue/Land Druid)

Cat’s build is here. (Creation Bard/Echo Knight Fighter)

Jeanne’s is here. (Astral Self Monk/Light Cleric)

and finally mine is here. (Echo Knight Fighter/Solidarity Cleric)

#dnd #D&D 5e #plurality #fgo #fate #build compilation

[youssefguedira]

adjective is gonna be the death of me

#i havent. really had to do plural adjectives yet. but i am trying to make grammar notes for my own reference #and i cannot. remember. how pluralising adjectives work #maybe i should have started with tenses at least that's nice and straight forward. but no. i was like let's go straight for idafa/adjectives #العربية #through gritted teeth i like this language i like it i love doing this i am not going to be defeated by adjectives #listening to a four hour compilation of so called epic zelda music in an attempt to force myself to get through this. is it working. well i #blinked and it's been like an hour. lost track of time entirely

[fdelopera]

I’m Christian but want to challenge what I’ve been taught after seeing your posts about the Old Testament having cut up the Torah to fit a different narrative. Today I was taught that the Hebrew word Elohim is the noun for God as plural and therefore evidence of the holy Trinity and Jesus & Holy Spirit been there at creation. Is that what the word Elohim actually means? Because I don’t want to be party to the Jewish faith, language and culture being butchered by blindly trusting what I was told

Hi Anon.

NOPE! The reason G-d is sometimes called Elohim in the Tanakh is because during the First Temple period (circa 1000 – 587 BCE), many of the ancestors of the Jewish people in the Northern and Southern Kingdoms practiced polytheism.

(A reminder that the Tanakh is the Hebrew bible, and is NOT the same as the “Old Testament” in Christian bibles. Tanakh is an acronym, and stands for Torah [Instruction], Nevi’im [Prophets], Ketuvim [Writings].)

Elohim is the plural form of Eloah (G-d), and these are some of the names of G-d in Judaism. Elohim literally means “Gods” (plural).

El was the head G-d of the Northern Kingdom’s pantheon, and the Southern Kingdom of Judah incorporated El into their worship as one of the many names of G-d.

The name Elohim is a vestige of that polytheistic past.

Judaism transitioned from monolatry (worshiping one G-d without denying the existence of others) to true monotheism in the years during and directly after the Babylonian exile (597 – 538 BCE). That is largely when the Torah was edited into the form that we have today. In order to fight back against assimilation into polytheistic Babylonian society, the Jews who were held captive in Babylon consolidated all gods into one G-d. Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheinu Adonai ehad. “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.”

So Elohim being a plural word for “Gods” has absolutely nothing to do with the idea of the Holy Trinity in Christianity.

Especially because Christians are monotheists. My understanding of the Holy Trinity (please forgive me if this is incorrect) is that Christians believe that the Holy Trinity is three persons in one Godhead. Certainly, the Holy Trinity is not “three Gods” — that would be blasphemy.

(My sincere apologies to the Catholics who just read this last sentence and involuntarily cringed about the Protestants who’ve said this. I’m so sorry! I’m just trying to show that it’s a fallacy to say that the Holy Trinity somehow comes from “Elohim.”)

But there's something else here, too. Something that as a Jew, makes me uneasy about the people who are telling you these things about Elohim and the Holy Trinity.

Suggesting that Christian beliefs like the Holy Trinity can somehow be "found" in the Tanakh is antisemitic.

This is part of “supersession theory.” This antisemitic theory suggests that Christianity is somehow the "true successor" to Second Temple Judaism, which is false.

Modern Rabbinic Judaism is the true successor to Second Temple Judaism. Period.

Christianity began as an apocalyptic Jewish mystery cult in the 1st century CE, in reaction to Roman rule. One of the tactics that the Romans used to subdue the people they ruled over was a “divide and conquer” strategy, which sowed division and factionalization in the population. The Romans knew that it was easier to control a country from the outside if the people inside were at each other’s throats.

Jesus led one of many breakaway Jewish sects at the time. The Jewish people of Qumran (possibly Essenes), whose Tanakh was the “Dead Sea Scrolls,” were another sect.

Please remember that the Tanakh was compiled in the form that we have today over 500 years before Jesus lived. Some of the texts in the Tanakh were passed down orally for maybe a thousand years before that, and texts like the Song of Deborah in the Book of Judges (in the Tanakh, that’s in the Nevi’im) were first written down in Archaic Biblical Hebrew during the First Temple Period.

There is absolutely nothing of Jesus or Christianity in the Tanakh, and there is nothing in the Tanakh that in any way predicts Christianity.

Also, Christians shouldn’t use Judaism in any way to try to “legitimize” Christianity. Christianity was an offshoot of 1st century Judaism, which then incorporated a lot of Roman Pagan influence. It is its own valid religion, in all its forms and denominations.

But trying to use the Hebrew bible to give extra credence to ideas like the Holy Trinity is antisemitic.

It is a tactic used by Christian sects that want to delegitimize Judaism as a religion by claiming that Christianity was somehow “planted” in the Tanakh over 2500 years ago.

This line of thinking has led Christians to mass murder Jews in wave after wave of antisemitic violence over the last nearly 2000 years, because our continued existence as Jews challenges the notion that Christians are the “true” successors of Temple Judaism.

Again, the only successor of Temple Judaism is Rabbinic Judaism, aka Modern Judaism.

This line of thinking has also gotten Christians to force Jews to convert en masse throughout the ages. If Christians can get Jews to all convert to Christianity, then they don’t have to deal with the existential challenge to this core misapprehension about the “true” successor to Temple Judaism.

And even today, many Christians still believe that they should try to force Jews to “bend the knee” to Jesus. When I was a young teenager, a preacher who was a parent at the school I went to got me and two other Jewish students to get in his car after a field trip. After he had trapped us in his car, he spent the next two hours trying to get us to convert to Christianity. It was later explained to me that some Christians believe they get extra “points” for converting Jews. And I’m sure he viewed this act of religious and spiritual violence as something he could brag about to his congregation on Sunday.

Trying to get Jews to convert is antisemitic and misguided, and it ignores all the rich and beautiful history of Jewish practice.

We Jews in diaspora in America and Europe have a forced immersion in Christian culture. It is everywhere around us, so we learn a lot about Christianity through osmosis. Many Jews also study early Christianity because Christianity exists as a separate religion within our Jewish history.

But I don’t see a lot of Christians studying Jewish history. Even though studying Jewish history would give you a wealth of understanding and context for your own religious traditions.

So, all of this is to say, I encourage you to study Jewish history and Jewish religious practice. Without an understanding of the thousands of years of Jewish history, it is easy to completely misinterpret the Christian bible, not to mention the Hebrew bible as well.

#judaism #jumblr #jewblr #jewish history #as a jew i never thought i'd be explaining the bible to christians but here we are! #i hope i've answered your question! #i know that a lot of jews will already know most of the jewish history i've shared but just in case i'm putting this in the jumblr tag #antisemitism tw

[discourse-by-candlelight]

It's odd to see an older post of ours suddenly spark back up in popularity, but while the small amount of attention is on us we may as well direct it towards something positive.

Hi, if you're here from the Soulbonding post I'd like to ask you to take some time to think about and appreciate them and their contributions to the plural community! Without the Soulbonders many things taken for granted now may never of been brought about or occurred within the endogenic and wider plural space.

From having a significant role in early plural history to popularizing terms now seen as generally plural like the word fictive, soulbonders have offered the community a fair amount. Sadly, in return they've been almost wiped off the map, leading to situations like having their terms used as an attempted replacement for tulpamancy as we discussed during the tulpacourse drama last year.

If you'd like to learn more about Souldbonding, we just recently discovered this well made carrd by @the-soulbonded-teaparty which compiles an extensive list of history, terms, and resources on the matter. It could teach you more than we ever could so we highly suggest checking it out.

Syscourse is currently a mess right now, so we hope this little offering can make some people on this site think about what exactly this community is and should be, especially in regards to the communities that have been or are being brought under the plural umbrella. We find that many subcultures like Tulpamancy, Daemonism, and Soulbonding are not well understood or appreciated as their own independent groups and practices within this community, with Soulbonding being an especially egregious example.

The individual identities of each of these subcultures are important to us, and they each have something truly special to offer as both their own entities and as forms of plurality if they so choose to identify as such. Take some time to appreciate them, and for everyone reading this, have a good day.

#syscourse #plurality #plural #pro endo #soulbonders #soulbonding #tulpamancy #plural positivity #endogenic #candlelight posts

[jelestes]

now why would she say that in plural? 🤨🏳️‍🌈⁉️

i’m compiling this to my canonical evidence of melissa schemmenti’s queerness binder.

#abbott elementary s3 #abbott elementary #abbott elementary spoilers #bi melissa schemmenti #canonical evidence #barbara howard #lisa ann walter #sheryl lee ralph #melissa schemmenti

[sophieinwonderland]

Now, why would you dare me to embarrass you and your pals like that?

I appreciate how you wanted my attention so bad you posted me to not one, but two subreddits.

Makes a girl feel special! 🤣

I have actually never seen Wikipedia cited as a source about endogenic plurality. Though I do see anti-endos all the time, when asked for sources, telling people to just Google things.

Anyway, here's @guardianssystem's document filled with academic papers about endogenic plurality:

I've compiled my own, but honestly, theirs is better organized than mine.

And in the interest of fairness, here are all the anti-endo papers debunking endogenic plurality:

Sorry, I forgot. Those don't exist. Oops. 🤷‍♀️

Echo chamber? LOL!

Weren't you the one spouting a bunch of lies on Tumblr, got totally debunked, posted the people who debunked you to r/systemscringe to have a hugbox where fakeclaimers could assure you how the people who contradicted you are all fakers, and then blocked everyone who disagreed with you?

Weren't you also the one who, when shown a quote from an expert in dissociative disorders who worked on the DSM-5 saying that a disorder isn't a disorder if it doesn't cause distress, argued that the people who defined what disorder are must be wrong about that definition?

You're a misinformation machine who can only find support when huddled in cringe subreddits. Don't try to talk about people in echo chambers.

Also, you know most of psychology is just... listening to people? That's how it's been as long as the field existed. DID (or MPD at the time) was a recognized disorder since long before the first brain scans were conducted on DID patients. It's saying something though when basically every single scientist who has ever researched endogenic plurality has said they believe it's a real thing, or that it could be. While absolutely zero academic papers have expressed that it's fake.

There is also an fMRI study into tulpa systems that's been in the works, but results have yet to be published.

Sure, if that's what you'd like me to call you, Crazy. 😊

Anyway, Crazy, you should know that just because you personally find something scary doesn't mean everyone will or that the thing is bad. Personal preferences are a thing.

In a study of tulpamancers though, most generally reported their lives becoming better after the practice.

78% reported improvements in their mental health, and 91% on overall life.

There are many out there who would jump at the chance to have someone there with them that knows them intimately, and to never have to be alone again.

If it's not for you, then so be it.

But it's certainly not something to be afraid of.

And maybe, for those who are willing to commit to the practice while America struggles with an epidemic of loneliness, it's something worth being open to.

This is actually pretty fair.

But that's now, and I'm looking at course of history and trends of plural acceptance.

300 years ago, any plural would be viewed as demon possessed and end up tortured or killed for their plurality.

70 years ago, all plurality was seen as a mental illness, and it was common to force plurals, as well as anyone else associated with mental illnesses, into asylums.

30 years ago, the first real plural communities were able to connect on the internet and form in small numbers.

8 years ago, the first studies into endogenic plurality started being conducted. 4 years ago, the ICD-11 acknowledged that you could have multiple distinct personality states without a disorder. 2023 marked the first, but certainly not the last, time a system used their system name as an author of an academic paper.

Recently, new plural resources have been designed and put into use. More servers than ever are using Pluralkit. And Simply Plural went from 100k users at the end of 2021 to 210k at the end of 2022.

Progress is happening far more rapidly than you realize. And you had best be ready for it.

BOO! 👻

Oh, hey, I just realized... this is literal pluralphobia!

Liberté!

Egalité!

Fraternité!

And yes, The Future is Plural! 😜

#syscourse #plural #plurality #pro endo #pro endogenic #endogenic #systems #multiplicity #plural system #endogenic system #system stuff #plural community #systemscringe #fake disorder cringe #r/systemscringe #sysblr #system things #actually plural #actually a system #the future is plural #I dare you to post this to your hate subs! 😝

[satellite-slickers]

i have finished compiling my thoughts and both the hero/protagonist/slayer/long quiet and the princess are both heavily plural coded. and not only that they are both plural in their own unique ways.

the slayer is never alone in his head even from the beginning, and gains new voices that can guide you and be your friends and even control your body. which is textbook system stuff.

meanwhile the princess is made from infinite versions and perspectives and facets of herself. each of them so different and yet all undeniably being just more sides of the same person. which to me is like a median system where its still a single identity, but with many different perspectives and facets which share that identity

love that they have their plural4plural swag and that them learning to love each other is about both of them accepting ane learning to love the other in all of their ways. not just a single part of the other

#slay the Princess #slay the Princess spoilers #stp #stp spoilera #the hero stp #the princess stp #plurality #multiplicity

[weirdoonthebus]

We need a little help...

We're WeirdoOnTheBus system, a plural system of trans girls who are really struggling financially right now. We do sex work for a living but trauma makes that difficult and we just got out of the mental hospital and have not been able to make any money. We've not been able to pay rent and are in danger of becoming homeless again. We've applied for disability but that will take time to start.

We need help at least getting our basic necessities this week, if you can spare anything we'd be very thankful. I'll include PayPal and CashApp links below but also want to point out we make music on Bandcamp you can buy if you'd prefer. Our most recent record was a compilation of remixes made to help raise money for rent as well, you can check that out here.

We appreciate whatever you can spare, every little bit helps <3

#trans #trans crowdfund #plz reblog

[yuurei20]

EN Changes Compilation Master List: Events

・Beanfest 1 and 2 Badges, vice housewardens, kebabs and more.

・EN vs. JP: Fairy Gala Sweet merciful seven, "barf," eggs and more.

・EN vs JP: Phantom Bride Slender, pronouns, "18 years old" and more.

・EN vs. JP: Wish Upon a Star Tanabata, high school, "boys in particular" and the Shaftlands.

・EN vs JP: Terror is Trending "Cay-Cay's gotchu," "-sama," "master" and "cui-cui."

・EN vs JP: Firelit Sky Servants, cute, and dokkan-senpai.

・EN vs JP: Spectral Soiree Plurals, perverts, eggs, landlocked, elephant ears and more.

・EN vs JP: Harveston Apples, accents, honorifics, baby rabbit and seven dwarves

・EN vs JP: Port Fest Sorcents and Stomp

・EN vs JP: Glorious Masquerade Sensei, humans, eggs, Smoldering Desire, lyrics and more.

・Glorious Masquerade vignettes "Imagination"

#twst translations #twstdialogue #twisted wonderland

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Re: fictional submissions that people keep sending even if this isnt the space and plural/system submissions having singlets that Cannot Be Normal About Systems in the notes causing less true feedback; It may be worth linking to other aitas that would cater better to their needs in your pinned to reduce the presented issues. There is plural-aita and aita-blorbos for some aitas that are active last I checked if you need urls/followers want specialty aitas.

There's already Entirely Too Much Information in my pinned so I don't want to add more, but I've been toying with the idea of compiling a links page

Wait no I was thinking of the FAQ--still, I'd make a links page over using my pinned because I do want to keep the pinned concise, because that's what I link on every post for the acronyms

[eeveecraft]

"Tulpa" and Cultural Appropriation

I cannot believe I feel so compelled to do this again, but after witnessing an announcement by Plural Nest that they're switching to parogenic terminology because they've been convinced by sysmeds that tulpa = appropriation while literally "sourcing" things from minors, singlets, non-Tibetans, and yes, of course, sysmeds is just so goddamn frustrating that I'm going to write this post. I will be referring to this Google Doc Plural Nest themselves linked in their announcement that contains a motley of blogs and accounts by various people:

Strap the fuck in because we're going to be here for a while.

Tulpa = Appropriation Is and Always Was a Bad-Faith Argument

I am prefacing this post with this idea because I want you to keep this in mind as you're reading. Something that has always bothered me about this "discourse" is that the people who go on and on and on about how they're protecting minorities and stopping actual harmful, real appropriation by attacking the Tulpamancy community never:

Go after actual harmful depictions of tulpa that actively profit off of sensationalizing the paranormal version of the word and deliberately linking it to Tibetan Buddhism (Supernatural, Mandela Catalogue, Slenderman, etc).

Uplift the voices of actual Tibetan Buddhists, even ones who disagree with them (which there ARE Tibetan Buddhists who are 100% okay with tulpa as a term, not just the Tibetan Buddhist AMA).

Explain how us using tulpa to describe our systemmates is actively harming Tibetan Buddhists. They just say it's harmful without providing any real examples of harm besides the word annoying them.

The intention of these people never was to protect vulnerable minorities, it was to deliberately blacklist a word a community has used for over a decade and a word that is literally being used in academic studies. If we as a community dropped tulpa, cold-turkey, 100%, we would lose access to so much of our history and access to scientific studies that the community NEEDS to be more accepted by the general public.

If these people actually cared and took the time to look into the Tulpamancy community, they would clearly see that the community very much stresses that tulpa is NOT the same as the paranormal term that IS sensationalized, and that all it means is a type of systemmate that was intentionally/unintentionally created through repeated interaction. And yet, that's not the case.

Oh, also, I found out that the Tibetan Buddhist Tulpamancer who did the AMA also has a Tumblr blog, and they even reblogged this post. And they even left this in the comments:

No one should feel ashamed of using the term “tulpa”. Buddhism, and practices related to it, are meant to be shared. That’s the whole point of the practice. And this greater community, is unique and distinct from Tibetan and related origin, it isn’t “appropriation” and even if it was, no one owns the term, and as I see it; use it as you wish!

So yeah, even further context!

Anyway, with that in mind...

Origins of Tulpa

One thing many people get wrong in the Google Doc is that tulpa directly is a Tibetan word. I have stated this in multiple places from my video on the history of Tulpamancy to my original essay back in 2020 on this very topic, but tulpa was derived from tulku and sprul-pa, which tulku specifically means the reincarnations of the Dalai or Tashi Lama, and sprul-pa means a type of "magically-produced illusion or creation." Alexandra David-Neel, a French explorer during the 1920's-1930's derived tulpa from these two words, and even in her own book, she admits they are not the same:

“These may be considered as veritable tulkus and, in fact, the demarcation between tulpas and tulkus is far from being clearly drawn. The existence of both is grounded on the same theories,” (David-Neel pg 313-314).

David-Neel, Alexandra. Magic and the Mystery of Tibet, Internet Archive, Translated by Claude Kendall, 1971 Dover Edition.

So, for all the people who keep saying that tulpa is a specific word in Tibetan Buddhism is incorrect, tulpa (paranormal) is BASED off of Tibetan language, but is not directly a part of the language, and the meaning was also changed. However, there is a further distinction I need to make:

Paranormal Versus Modern Tulpas

There is a very, VERY important distinction I need to make that a LOT of people who scream, "TULPA IS RACIST!" get wrong. Modern tulpas, the type created by the Tulpamancy community go by this definition (or any similar variation):

A sentient/sapient, typically intentionally created being that is conscious and autonomous, and can only be seen, heard, or felt by the host/system that can also think independently from the host/system. Essentially a separate person sharing a body with the person who created them.

Source: My own Tulpamancy guide.

When the term created by Alexandra David-Neel that is still used in horror media goes by (paraphrasing some bits):

A type of phantom created by a person's concentrated thoughts that when developed enough, it frees itself of its creator's to go onto be a "half-conscious, dangerously mischievous puppet" or just severely injure or even kill their creator.

This definition is cobbled together from David-Neel's own book since she doesn't directly give a definition for paranormal tulpa that I can just fully quote here that's concise enough. Another important observation I made is that David-Neel right afterwards also mentions her ability to see thought-forms, you know... the type derived from English Theosophy, the concept that's way more accurate to modern tulpas than "phantoms," that existed before David-Neel wrote her book? Funny, huh?

Why does this distinction matter?

It's pretty simple. The actual harmful word that horror media profits off of and sensationalizes for clout is the definition David-Neel derived. The word that people attack the Tulpamancy community for literally just means a type of systemmate and has no inherent paranormal or spiritual meaning. The former deliberately shows off the word's Buddhist roots for the sake of personal gain while the modern word is stressed as something on its own, its own concept and practice that is not related to Buddhism. Modern Tulpamancy is completely secular, you can be completely atheist (like me) and create a tulpa just fine. Anyone can. Not a single culture can claim something literally anybody can do by mistake.

Just that the word has a distant link in etymology to it and isn't actually a Tibetan Buddhist concept. By the logic of people who think tulpa is a racist term, any term derived from another language in English would be racist... which would account for 99% of the English language, and honestly kind of demonstrates that they low-key don't even know what racism means at that point.

So, please tell me why the latter is in the crosshairs of people who are supposedly protecting a minority? Why is it that I myself have had to call out things like the Mandela Catalogue for using the paranormal variant of tulpa and twisting it into an edgy story about body-snatchers as some kind of cryptid SCP creature, but I haven't seen anyone else do it? Why isn't there an outrage by these people on notoriously appropriative shows like Supernatural? Hmm.

(Also, important that another blog reblogged that post and mentioned that they've spoken to actual Tibetans on Facebook and how none of them think tulpa is harmful specifically because it's so far-removed from Tibetan Buddhism. Like, they're cool with it as long as the community doesn't try and link it to Tibetan Buddhism, which is literally what the community does and has been doing for YEARS. Love how sysmeds conveniently ignore that. Same with this AMA by another practicing Tibetan Buddhist on Reddit, which is REAL funny that Plural Nest doesn't link this AMA, but links another post by a person who converted to Tibetan Buddhism who agreed with their viewpoint, even if that post was extremely flawed).

People Who Tout This Claim

One thing that is extremely frustrating to see is all these POC systems go on and on and on about how white people shouldn't speak about POC issues, but then turn around and speak over other POC. In one of my original posts on this topic, I specifically made the comparison of a Chinese person trying to dictate what can and cannot happen in Japanese culture. Both are Asian, both are people of color, but they are not the same, and to imply that is racist. POC systems saying that they can dictate that a word based off of Tibetan language is racist as hell, even when they're not Tibetan, just because they're both Asian implies that POC culture is all the same that any person of color can dictate what happens in the other culture is disgusting. Full stop. It's generalizing a HUGELY varied amount of peoples and cultures, and just generalizes them as all the same, and quite frankly, that's insulting.

And even if we go by their logic that any Asian POC can dictate whether or not tulpa is racist also conversely means that any Asian POC can also dictate that tulpa isn't racist. I can literally just go to my best friend who's Asian and Buddhist and ask him if tulpa is racist as a term, he'd just laugh, and say this whole discourse is stupid. In fact, let me go do that:

(He sent me a GIF of SomeOrdinaryGamer laughing, LMAO.)

Anyway, this is what he said:

i am an asian, i believe that the word “Tulpa” is not racist nor cultural appropriation.

(FYI, he's also a Tulpamancer and has been for almost as long as I have.)

I can go on r/Tulpas or #RedditTulpas right now, make a poll for Asian POC systems, and ask them whether or not tulpa as a term is racist, and get hundreds of votes that no, it isn't. It means systems like The Cabin System who are also SE Asian who've openly stated that tulpa as a term isn't racist also have as much stake in the argument as the opposite side does.

Do you see how it devolves into a pissing contest between sides? What does this achieve? All it does is segregate the community and draw unnecessary lines, which is exactly what sysmeds want because it's ways easier to harass and kill smaller communities that way or turn them against each other until they eat each other alive. And they won't just stop with tulpa terminology, they're just using tulpa because they found a convenient scapegoat to attack it. Sysmeds literally find ANY excuse to demonize or take away a word from the endogenic community, it's no different here.

To further prove this point, sysmeds literally tried to say "system hopping" is a term appropriated from RAMCOA survivors, which was completely false. They are not afraid to pull the appropriation card on any word they can, tulpa isn't the only instance of it.

Just by looking in the #tulpa tag, you can see people who are equating people who use tulpa as racist, and want to split the community between "racists and non-racists."

Another key fact is that most people who have this view also have a comical lack of understanding of what Tulpamancy even is. For example, the system that coined willogenic specifically because they think tulpa is racist defined willogenic systemmates as:

“Willogenic system - A system that was purposefully created or “willed” into existence. There’s no connection to t/lpam/ncy at all.”

(Notice how the definition also excludes unintentional tulpas, which is roughly a third of the community? Fun!)

Yes, the actual definition is censored like that. So, the definition states that a systemmate can be ""willed" into existence," and is supposed to be a direct replacement for tulpa. No. No. Stop. You don't just "will" a tulpa into existence. If that was true, we wouldn't still get people on r/Tulpas making posts on how they've tried and tried for months or even years to create a tulpa and still failed.

Not just that, but it severely misrepresents the tulpa creation process as this super simple thing to "will into existence" when tulpa creation varies a LOT from person to person and is far more than just willing a fully formed tulpa into existence. I've mentioned this before, but I seriously do not like the broader Plurality Community attempting to force the Tulpamancy Community to adhere to their terminology that they created, and slapping, "Use our terms or you're a racist piece of sh!t!" on top of that has a REALLY bad connotation.

And remember when I made that distinction between the actually harmful paranormal tulpa definition and the community's definition? Yeah, like I said, most people who have this opinion also are conflating what we do to the paranormal definition.

All the Tulpamancy Community does is create a space where people can partake in tulpa creation and development. That's it. The majority of the community views it as 100% psychological, there's no paranormal ghost nonsense happening, and people are just trying to live their lives with their tulpas. It's not any more complicated than that, and labeling people who use a term like tulpa as racist is seriously scummy.

How "Tulpa = Appropriation" is Harmful

Ironically, this "discourse" has caused more harm to the Tulpamancy community than anything else. Like how I said that all the POC systems who said "tulpa" as a word has "harmed" them don't provide any examples of harm? Well, I can provide examples of how this whole thing has actually caused damage to people in the Tulpamancy Community.

Let's start with me. On multiple occasions, I have had multiple anons harass my inbox, calling me racist, calling me slurs, and even sexually harassing me in the comments of one of my posts specifically because of this issue. In fact, several sysmeds tried raiding our Discord server alongside harassing us on Tumblr because of what Amanitasys's post started, and this has also happened to @cambriancrew, @sophieinwonderland, and more because we happen to be blogs that intersect both communities.

The Widening Divide

Secondly, the widening divide between the Tulpamancy and Plurality communities.

The relationship between the Tulpamancy and broader Plurality community was already tenuous, and for most of the Tulpamancy community's history, it has stayed isolated from other Plurality circles. It was only within the past few years that the communities started to intermingle, but this drama can ruin that.

Because as someone who HAS been in the community for over half a decade, I can tell you that the majority of the Tulpamancy community thinks this drama is stupid and aren't going to change terminology for multiple reasons. Now, do NOT take this as the community going, "Tulpa is a completely unproblematic word!" when the community has debated the term's usage for YEARS. Nobody is saying the word is perfect, but it's what the community has used for over a decade now and every attempt to change the word has failed. And honestly, as someone who's reviewed the vast majority of Tulpamancy guides in existence, I likely know better than anyone else that if tulpa was blacklisted like some people want, the community would lose so much history and resources, it's not even funny.

Unlike the broader community, the Tulpamancy community has a focus on the creation and sharing of Tulpamancy guides and resources, and the vast majority of these resources directly have "tulpa" or "Tulpamancy" in the name, let alone the sheer volume of times the aforementioned words are used in these guides. If we completely dropped the word, the ability of new people to look up and find these guides becomes FAR more difficult. "Tulpa" is a unique and consistent word and makes it easy to look into the community, which in turn helps people discover resources that can help them on their tulpa creation journey.

And for the bottomfeeders who'll inevitably go, "Well, just change the resources!" I need you to go outside and touch some grass, please.

1.) There are literally hundreds of guides, not even including website domains like Tulpa.info, Tulpa.io. Tulpa.net, and many more. There are literally academic studies that use tulpa, and if the community (not just the Tulpamancy community) wants any hope of being accepted by the general public, we NEED those studies to back our existence (as frustrating as it is). Don't forget all the articles, podcasts, and videos we couldn't even change if we want to! Again, over a decade of history.

2.) The VAST majority of the people who wrote these guides are no longer in the community and it is disrespectful to the authors to take and change their work without their permission (if ANY of you tried taking my guide and replaced every tulpa-related term with something else, I'd be PISSED).

3.) Literally every alternative to tulpa has some critical flaw in one way or another (I made a post about this here) and literally nobody can agree on a single term. The amount of fragmenting this would cause would make the aforementioned issue of discoverability EVEN WORSE.

4.) The rate at which resources are created has slowed dramatically since the community's early days. People are just complacent with what they have now, and I don't think labeling tulpa as a racist term is suddenly going to get more people to write more guides, just to change a few words around.

I feel this issue can get to a point where the Plurality community literally starts banning the usage of tulpa-related terminology completely, thus excommunicating the Tulpamancy community from most plural spaces. Places like Plural Nest where the staff OPENLY say that tulpa is appropriative sets this precedent, and even though Plural Nest (at least right now) is still allowing people to use tulpa terminology, other places might pick up on what Plural Nest did, but worse. That ends up excluding people like us from plural spaces and just undoes all the work that's happened to connect the two communities.

Like, systems like us, Dragonheart already have to avoid sysmed servers, but now, even with "inclusive" servers, we might be run out because the owners/staff think tulpa is a racist term. So now we have an extra layer of anxiety when trying to join new communities. That's fun.

It's literally creating what endogenic systems already deal with in the plural community, but now even parts of the endogenic community are bullying another subset of their own community. It's terrible.

So, in the Tulpamancy community's perspective, we either: A.) Give up our most used word and people lose access to so much history and resources, and create a huge divide in our already fragmented community.

Or:

B.) Stick to our guns, but be excommunicated and villainized by the broader Plurality community.

There's no winning here. Regardless of what the Tulpamancy community does, it's going to cause a lot of damage. Sysmeds win regardless with their goal being to divide and fuck up our community, and it deeply upsets me.

What Tulpamancy Really Is

So, what are people trying to attack so hard and blacklist from plural spaces? What are people fighting so hard against to conform to their standards, or be labeled as racist? What Tulpamancy is, for a lot of people, is a means to living a better life. I cannot tell you how many stories I have read of tulpas stopping their hosts from taking their own lives, how creating a tulpa has hugely improved the mental health of others, or how tulpas encourage their hosts to socialize and take care of the body, or how just making a tulpa connects you to a community with the mutual interest in self-improvement and self-love, and so, so much more. Tulpamancy improves people's lives, and Tulpamancy techniques are not exclusive to us.

Any system, or even singlets can learn from the Tulpamancy community to improve their own lives. And yes, that means Tulpamancy helps a lot of people of color as well, as well as a lot of other vulnerable minorities! Whether it's learning vocality to better communicate with alters or using switching techniques to control switching, or even learning how to make a mindscape or improve visualization skills. I don't understand how this community can be labeled as a bunch of racists (even though there are scumbags like Kopase that sadly exist (why don't you guys RIGHTFULLY sh!t on people like him?)) when literally the entire point of the community is self-betterment.

And like what @dharmayokeyodasampa, the Tibetan Buddhist Tulpamancer stated before, "Buddhism, and practices related to it, are meant to be shared. That’s the whole point of the practice," and the same can be said for Tulpamancy. Tulpamancy can be for everyone if it means making their lives better. It's meant to be a positive thing that can truly be life-changing, and seeing people trying to label that practice with one of hatred and harm is just... horrible.

The Tulpamancy community doesn't have some secret agenda to silence people of color or mock any kind of religion or practice. We're just a bunch of lonely people wanting companionship and are tired of being alone.

Conclusion

"Tulpa" as a term, at best, is murky. Nobody is arguing that David-Neel was a saint. She wasn't, and she's dead and buried. Tulpa isn't her word anymore. People in the Tulpamancy community are just fed up with outsiders trying to dictate how their community should be run. We know the term has issues, we know its history is not all sunshine and rainbows. We do not need outsiders barging in and stating the obvious and acting like they know more than we do about our own community and history.

And look, I know some people who believe tulpa is appropriative have good intentions and just want to be non-offensive, but people take advantage of that. Sysmeds took advantage of people wanting to do right and weaponized people into being their mouthpieces under the guise of, "We just want to be racially-sensitive." But instead of actually protecting minorities, all it did was harm another minority while ignoring groups who are taking advantage of the word, and using it for clout and profit. That is exactly why I started this LONG essay with why this whole thing is a bad-faith argument.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: this is the Plurality-equivalent of "queer is a slur." Drama deliberately caused by bad actors who spread rumors of a word being bad, leading it to be picked up by well-intentioned people, and being turned into the pawns of those bad actors without realizing it.

I'm so pissed I had to make this post, but after seeing what Plural Nest did, and then learning that they KNEW some of their sources were by sysmeds who have ACTIVELY professed their hatred of tulpas and decided to use them anyway to a community of over a thousand users just led me to being fed up. It gave this indication that if large plural spaces like that are echoing a statement meant to divide us, things aren't looking good, and I'm not going to sit here and watch a community I've been in for over half a decade get wrongfully demonized.

If Plural Nest staff just said they're changing terminology because they just don't like tulpa or or the fact that it's conflated with horror media, I would've been fine with it. That's a perfectly understandable reason not to like the term. We're not forcing you to use the term! Use whatever term you want! It was the motivation behind it that I take issue with and the precedent it sets. I don't know where this community is heading, but I hope things go all right.

7-22-2023

#tulpamancy #plurality #actuallyplural #endogenic #tulpa #tulpa-safe #sysmed tw #sysmed mention #cultural appropriation #tulpa safe #endo safe #plural community #pluralgang #long post #essay

[multiplicity-positivity]

To our followers:

It has never been a goal of ours to police other people’s lived experience, much less their online experience. However, this is a shift we feel is necessary for us to make.

It is with a heavy heart that we are adding to our DNI followers and fans of @/sophieinwonderland.

Why?

This has everything to do with racism within the plural community. We have seen many conversations circling recently about tulpamancy terminology, its harm, and how it directly negatively affects marginalized groups (specifically Asian/Tibetan Buddhists).

As a white system, we believe it is crucial to center the voices of affected marginalized groups when discussing issues that directly concern them. Because of this, a few members of our system have compiled a list of testimonies from Buddhist POC involving their thoughts on tulpamancy language. We’d encourage everyone to check out that document, which we will link below:

The fact of the matter is, Sophie of @/sophieinwonderland has ignored, brushed off, or flat out denied the concerns and struggles of Buddhist POC regarding their language being appropriated. She has fearmongered to warp this issue into one that centers tulpas as those being discriminated against, rather than the racial and religious minorities whose culture has been stolen.

We cannot stand for this. As a white system aiming to unlearn racial biases and push for antiracism in our spaces, we feel it is imperative to bring this issue to light on our positivity blog and adjust our DNI accordingly.

We are more than happy to answer questions for anyone who is still confused or has concerns. And we will include a small FAQ below a cut to answer questions we anticipate may arise.

Thank you so much for reading, everyone! Of course, we cannot ensure that 100% of our interactions are coming from people who don’t support this user. However, we can rely on the basic human decency and respect of others and trust that they will respect our wishes on this matter. You are welcome to unfollow us, block us, do what you have to do. But we will not budge on this matter until the voices of Buddhist people of color have been acknowledged and recognized!

FAQ regarding this change:

Q) Can tulpa systems still interact?

A) Yes! Our biggest issue is with this particular user’s unwillingness to listen to racial and religious minorities concerning issues that directly affect them. While we are moving away from tulpamancy language ourself, we understand it may take some time for others to make this change for themselves!

Q) What terminology can be used instead of tulpamancy that is not cultural appropriation?

A) Thoughtform, parogenic/paromate, paro/paromancy, willogenic/willomate!

Q) I don’t want to have to choose between y’all and Sophie! What can I do?

A) In this situation, we politely ask you to choose anyway. And if that is too difficult a choice to make, we can make it for you and ask you to go ahead and unfollow us.

Q) What about (x user) who is a pro-tulpa Buddhist Asian/Tibetan?

A) Currently, we have resources from 8-9 individuals expressing concerns over tulpamancy language. If we can hear from a similar number of actual Asian/Tibetan Buddhists stating otherwise, we will happily reconsider our stance. It’s important to listen to people of color when they say something hurts them.

#psa #beware #syscourse #pro endo #tulpamancy #tulpa #pro tulpa #anti tulpa terminology #racism #multiplicity #pluralgang #plurality #actuallyplural