Tulpa.info - guide-discussion

It will take years for people to agree on the definition of your label

so don’t get too excited (edited)

So until then I’m in label limbo?

6:48 PM

Being able to be defined by anything at anytime from anyone and they’ll all be true?

A lot of walk-ins (assuming anyone knows what I mean by a walk-in) are super developed when they appear, sometimes moreso than a young tulpa, so I don't think it's a network size thing.

I agree with Ranger, meaning of walk in and tulpa is very subjective, but how can people have conversations when most if the time they argue about what this and that means? Usually on good debates it is required for people to just define their terms only so people know what each other means and have a conversation Words are for communication, it doesn’t matter if you agree on definition as long as you know what each other means (edited)

Yeah, so the guide has got to give a definition and stick to it, and it doesn't even have to be a definition everyone else agrees on. It just needs to be stated clearly.

Exactly

6:52 PM

Ranger should just define his word and go for it

6:54 PM

He will still get the messages of “boohooo but i mean this by tulpa or walk in !! What you describe as tulpa is an imaginary friend!!” it shouldnt matter because noone agrees on the damn thing but you can still agree that people have soecific experiences (edited)

proxi

At least this way he can get his message across clearly without everyone not understanding what he means because their definitions of walk-ins don’t align with his

Yep!

One flaw

7:09 PM

"Well my walk-ins are different so this advice doesn't apply" >randomly accepts 5 new tulpas I'm different!

7:13 PM

Just to support generalization

generalization?

Yeah, the only way you can have any productive conversation that doesn't focus on a single system Because everyone's personal definitions will differ I hate when the discussion instantly kills itself because "wull my tulpas are different/my switching is different so you can't have any opinion and I'm discarding your advice"

7:27 PM

"He was my rp character first" and "I have DID" are the common shutdowns

I'm afraid you've lost me, J

7:33 PM

generalization of what exactly? and is the flaw 'having specific definitions in the guide' or is the flaw something else?

I think he means to keep it generalised so people don’t focus too much on how stuff works for them

7:55 PM

If so, I agree

Gee, I've lost the point myself Creating an ultimate and specific definition of "walk-ins are this" could be detrimental if it turns people away from advice that does actually apply to them, when those people go "wull I'm special, my situation is special"

Yeah agreed

7:58 PM

Keep the definition to something short lioe “a headmate that you didnt plan” or something, specifics don’t matter that much (edited)

7:58 PM

Specifics are subjective anyway

7:58 PM

And differ from person to person

8:00 PM

Specifics will either have the effect you mentioned or quite the opposite, forming someone’s experience like after you introduced medians

A lot of walk-ins (assuming anyone knows what I mean by a walk-in) are super developed when they appear, sometimes moreso than a young tulpa, so I don't think it's a network size thing.

I somewhat disagree. While the creation process can be refined and future walk-ins have an easier time moving and speaking, they are still usually blank slates with some expectations. I think the only way a walk-in would be able to carry a long conversation about themselves is if they had backstory already, but I think that qualifies as forcing time spent before the walk-in became vocal. I don't consider an RP character turned tulpa a walk-in unless the walk-in is based on another source and the host didn't spend hours fantasizing about the character (A Yoshi walk-in with 50+ hours of daydreaming behind it isn't the same thing as a Bob the builder walk-in you only got because you watched a single episode). I think all of this would be better for the "advanced" article. To answer the question for a beginner, I think the important difference is a tulpa and another thoughtform is a tulpa is wanted/accepted and a walk-in isn't. Having a "walk-in" implies you have company you don't really want in the first place. A walk-in is more like an intrusive thought.

12:02 AM

=== On the definition of a walk-in: ultimately, I agree I will end up creating my own definition. I want my definition to match other sources as best I can, but I will prefer to sacrifice nuance for clarity for this article. To make up for it, I can make my nuanced definition for the alternate article

I wonder just how common walk-ins really are in a vaccuum. It's all well and good to say that knowledge of them is what causes them, but that's probably speculation without data. If the number of walk-ins is high enough specifics should definitely be provided to "avoid them". Stressing, of course, that they cannot exist without your consent on some level and explaining the nature of intrusive or impulsive thoughts to devalue them.

@A long kiss goodnight I've been thinking about this and I feel like 95%+ of the benefit of a walk-in guide will be in providing people the tools to deal with the walk-in phenomenon in a healthy way. It could probably be very short, and very general, and ideally very very clear. Advanced concepts are interesting but they don't immediately affect beginners. Also, it's clear from this discussion that a lot of experienced people have their own definitions and ideas, so an 'Advanced' article would be more like an opinion piece, and arguably could be considered system-narrative-forcing if read by a beginner. So I think it's good you're considering making this in two parts, and I really think that by far the most valuable part would be a generalised, brief, and high-clarity beginner guide.

I agree with all of that. Forcing a system narrative is an interesting point I didn't consider. The main reasons I want a clear and relatively simple guide are to not scare away beginners with a lot of text and concepts they're not familiar with. Like you said, the goal is to give beginners the tools they need to prevent having extra tulpas they didn't plan for or want. I think talking about walk-ins in depth and stir up opinions about it would be fantastic, but I think that needs to be a separate thing. So far I think I'm going to cover -What is a walk-in? -What is the difference between a walk-in and a tulpa? -Why do people have walk-ins? At this point I expect my target audience to have at least been exposed to the word tulpa enough times they have a basic idea of what a tulpa is (and thus may have already begun forcing one). I think defining it would be unnecessary unless I find it would be really helpful. The questions -What causes walk-ins? -Are walk-ins made or do they just show up? -What is the difference between walk-ins and other thoughtforms? Are more advanced and I think better fit the alternate article. (edited)

I’m surprised people don’t appreciate forcing system narrative in tulpa community in general. I think people sharing their knowledge and beliefs about plurality should be aware that most of the information shared is prescriptive rather than descriptive.. that’s why people in did community have very similar experiences (they read same guides), people started having median headmates everywhere after Jamie wrote about them, people practicing chaos magic have similar experiences to each other etc… Having that in mind I am thinking about how can you write in a healthy way about walk ins? For example, if you said that they are more like intrusive thoughts and appear when you are anxious, someone that read it might get a walk in next time when they are anxious which they might not have gotten if they didn’t read about it. Sure they can go back to your guide and read about methods that worked for you (if you share them of course) but would they need it if they haven’t read it in the first place? This extends to other things like for example the tulpa ethics that we talked enough about in the past. People who read that tulpas are real people that need to be treated as such will treat a prescriptive guide as a description and objective truth of what a tulpa is and will truly believe there is nothing they can do if things get out of control and instead of ending this as soon as possible, they read more prescriptive advice that puts more symbolism and convoluted methods of how to cope with it. Quite honestly I’m not sure how many people will be able to justify treating tulpa as a person, but not a walk in, but since both things are close to your heart I’m sure you will give a justified explanation in the guide Anyway that’s why in general I am really for a minimalistic approach to plurality that promotes putting mental health of the host and functionality as the top priority

I’m surprised people don’t appreciate forcing system narrative in tulpa community in general.

I think any general creation guide writer needs to embrace they're teaching their tulpamancy including their biases, and that feels somewhat out of place for this piece. I will be teaching my bias regardless, but my goal is more to teach how to address this if it comes up instead of this is how you should make a tulpa and here are the best steps in my opinion. I don't want to conflict with what creation guides teach too much (assuming that's possible) except on the idea of dissipation so tulpamancers aren't afraid to let go of walk-ins. Otherwise, I think there's only so much a guide can do to save the reader from themself. For instance, I don't think FAQ man and Irish thought hour counts would blow up into the huge problem it did. Future guides now condemn those or explain how to use hour counts appropriately as backlash to that problem. There are going to be things here and there that guide writers aren't going to realize are influential in a negative way. On the other hand, some guide writers want to push what they believe and want others to be influenced by their mindset on tulpamancy. For instance, people like to preach don't use your tulpa as a sex toy with the hope that sticks. Others want to push a strong position on tulpa ethics because they believe tulpas should be treated a particular way. I personally believe most guides including creation guides will be biased and beginners need to read multiple guides to get the most out of them. While I am taking a more general approach to appeal to more people, I hope more anti-walk-in guides are made as a result of this piece. (edited)

I agree with proxi that most information shared by people about plurality is prescriptive rather than descriptive, and I think a lot of people don't appreciate that when they are sharing it. I think it's only a matter of time before any subjective experience taught as if it is immutable, objective truth about how plurality works becomes a major problem for someone, somewhere, somehow. Early guide writers may not have had the experience or forethought to realise the effect their opinions-misunderstood-as-facts would have on others, but that's not the case in the current era. There are plenty of examples to learn from, now, so I don't think there are many good excuses for making the same mistake. The simplest and most effective counter to this danger is to not include any of your personal system narrative in any guides you write. This has the added benefit of keeping the guide brief and clear. Attempting to counter this danger by adding further layers of beliefs reminds me of a certain Simpsons episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuiK7jcC1fY In summary, just because many/most guides are biased in a way that can cause major harm to certain people doesn't mean that every guide has to include these dangers. In fact, I have serious ethical concerns with any guides written in the current era that push someone's personal views onto another. Experienced tulpamancers can be immune to this danger, but few beginners are.

"The simplest and most effective counter to this danger is to not include any of your personal system narrative in any guides you write" A thousand percent

If a personal narrative of the writer is not minimised in a guide, then it's about the writer, not about helping others

Gavin had to revise the dissipation guide bc of that

3:10 PM

Among other things but mostly that

3:11 PM

You think it qualifies you but in practice people hardly care, hopefully your actual advice is the quality part

3:12 PM

Ethos on the internet is basically just using the right internet slang as other people lol

I agree that revision minimize your narrative can be helpful and make your guide better, but I strongly disagree that all guides should focus heavily on taking out their narrative. Tulpamancy is always going to have a strong taste of bias because experiences are strongly biased to begin with. If you write out some tulpamancy and take out most your narrative, it becomes less obvious it's biased. If it's not obvious it's biased, people are more likely to take it as objective fact and the issues we see will get worse not better. I want to minimize my narrative because I think a beginner resource should be more thought out than other content, but I don't want to make the assumption what I think applies to everyone because it won't. The only appropriate way to take out bias for tulpamancy is to do real science, which for now doesn't cover topics like creation and how to keep walk-ins out. I think the solution is to be more clear what is and isn't bias (edited)

3:35 PM

=== I am very against the idea of one-size-fits-all guides. I have seen this approach in action and it causes problems. One particular author had this approach, and they have only received feedback that they are pushing their narrative onto other people. Even though I intend to cover all (err, most that I can find) points of view with my switching guide, it is not a one-size-fits-all, my target audience is for systems that struggle to switch (because for a lot of systems, they won't need my guide to switch) (edited)

Yeah but if it's a 101 guide it's gotta be general

3:44 PM

Unless you're me and you're 100% down to gatekeep and simply go "roleplayers need not apply" etc

3:44 PM

Idk lol this isn't even about the walk in guide anymore

This is #guide-discussion , this is appropriate

@A long kiss goodnight

...but I strongly disagree that all guides should focus heavily on taking out their narrative.

Labelling someone's subjective, personal system narrative as a 'guide' elevates it to the status of 'fact' in the eyes of many beginners, and I think this is the cause of many problems, so I strongly disagree with you.

If you write out some tulpamancy and take out most your narrative, it becomes less obvious it's biased. If it's not obvious it's biased, people are more likely to take it as objective fact and the issues we see will get worse not better.

Rather than adding more and more personal narrative, how about removing all personal narrative? Including one's own system narrative as a part of a guide is the very definition of pushing one's own narrative onto other people. And at that point, I really do think it becomes more about the writer than helping the reader. Including as many other system's narratives in a guide as possible just provides a bigger pool of options for an unwary beginner to draw problems from. As proxi said about walk-ins:

For example, if you said that they are more like intrusive thoughts and appear when you are anxious, someone that read it might get a walk in next time when they are anxious which they might not have gotten if they didn’t read about it. Sure they can go back to your guide and read about methods that worked for you (if you share them of course) but would they need it if they haven’t read it in the first place?

Sometimes it benefits the reader to know where the author is coming from

4:01 PM

When I was reading guides for learning purposes, I'd often try and see what other posts that system made, if they had a progress report etc. Some people write guides without even having the skills they are teaching

I think a general guide that's actually everyone's perspective would be incoherent. Even the order of what skills to work on first is completely subjective. Basically, I think it would turn into a huge guide list plus a couple of extra ideas, and with no thesis or direction it's ability to teach anything would be questionable at best. I think it would be better to write an article dedicated to talking about other people's perspectives, and even such a guide would never be complete. All tulpamancy needs to be framed in it's context or you can burden yourself with the knowledge you gained. I found this while working on my switching guide- there are people who claim that full-body possession and switching are the same thing. For me, this hurt my confidence and gave me the wrong ideas about switching, setting me back from achieving it. However, for others, this is exactly what they would conclude and they would find this advice helpful. This walk-in guide will struggle with the same consequences if I emphasize this guide as fact- for those who are deeply parrotnoid and struggle to get any progress with their tulpa, they may point to this guide as harmful information. To them, a walk-in could be a baby tulpa that was denied, and they had to learn that to get their first tulpa.

All tulpamancy needs to be framed in it's context or you can burden yourself with the knowledge you gained. I found this while working on my switching guide- there are people who claim that full-body possession and switching are the same thing. For me, this hurt my confidence and gave me the wrong ideas about switching, setting me back from achieving it.

There are two possibilities that I can think of that could have happened here: 1. Those people's claims are part of their system narrative, and are not universally true. or 2. Full-body possession and switching are in fact the same thing, but the guide didn't define it's terms well enough for the reader to understand. It sounds like you have personal experience of guides causing you problems. This is why emphasising things that are part of a system's narrative as universal facts is a bad idea, and it's also why not giving clear definitions is a bad idea.

If you don't know for sure that something is a universal fact, why include it in a guide meant for a general audience? That's just asking for trouble.

Yuka

Sure, reports have their own place and can be useful, given the reader understands it’s a report. But there is a difference between: “This is what walk ins are to me, I experienced walk ins in this way, to me the difference between tulpa and walk in is this and that, this is how I managed it” And “This is what walk ins are, this is how they are made, this is what’s the difference between tulpa and walk in, this is how you manage it” Those two approaches have completely different tone. One is subjectively talking about one’s experience, “take what you want from it if anything resonates”, the other one is prescriptive (edited)

I would also like to point out that that what you described in regards to your switching experience was not only someone hurting your confidence, but also changing your system narrative, so you can see yourself how suggestive that can be Now imagine that instead of someone telling you that switching is full body possession, they put an equal sign between intrusive thoughts and walk ins (edited)

There are two possibilities that I can think of that could have happened here:

Regardless if the cause was system narrative or bad definitions, I don't believe any guide writer can perfectly weed out the former and practice the latter. While certain things can be easy to identify as bias, others are not. I can tell you what I think about tulpa creation for instance, but the nuance I teach will be harder to strip, especially since offering nuance to begin with is a choice that aligns with my bias. As for the latter, it's an ongoing discussion if language is good enough to describe internal experiences like switching. How can you perfectly define switching? You can't from what I have seen, at least not without science and tools like fMRIs (maybe). Additionally, some points are so deeply rooted in bias you wouldn't want to argue otherwise. I still feel I am a moderate anti-creationist, I see it as a win if I can talk someone out of doing tulpamancy they're not feeling sure about doing. I believe possession should be attempted before switching (I have an entire possession guide I'm working on to argue that point). Part of what makes a guide a guide is how someone envisions the way you should do something, and I think discouraging unique perspectives hurts those who could have benefited from those perspectives. Someone could find the way I learned how to possess useful for recreating that on their own. === (edited)

4:56 PM

If you don't know for sure that something is a universal fact, why include it in a guide meant for a general audience? That's just asking for trouble.

You don't have to know everything to teach what you know. If you learned how to create a tulpa, you can tell someone else what you did. I think it's good practice to study on what others have said and consider what someone might find confusing, but beyond that, you're still writing what you did and what you think. Guides are suggested paths for how to achieve something, not doctrines or facts.

Some people write guides without even having the skills they are teaching

I'm working on another tip/trick guide, and I'm learning the skill as I flesh out the guide. Gray did that with his wonderland guide.

I found this while working on my switching guide- there are people who claim that full-body possession and switching are the same thing. For me, this hurt my confidence and gave me the wrong ideas about switching, setting me back from achieving it.

Wait, did I misunderstand you @A long kiss goodnight, did you write a switching guide before you learned to switch?

5:00 PM

I'm working on another tip/trick guide, and I'm learning the skill as I flesh out the guide. Gray did that with his wonderland guide.

“This is what walk ins are to me, I experienced walk ins in this way, to me the difference between tulpa and walk in is this and that, this is how I managed it”

See, I prefer this because it's clear it's subjective. I'm not sure what kind of guide you want that would be both not prescriptive but also not have the author's personal narratives. I'm not sure how someone could write a guide with only universal facts, I don't think people can even agree on what is universal. It always comes down to "it works like this for me, so that's how it is for everyone else too" which is... not always helpful. (and then you get people going "You can't even do X? I can do X so you must just be lazy/incompetent")

I'm not sure what kind of guide you want that would be both not prescriptive but also not have the author's personal narratives.

The author's personal narratives are the bits that are prescriptive

5:03 PM

Remove one, you remove the other.

I don't have a rough draft of my switching guide, much less published it yet, but I have several pages of ideas and brainstorming dedicated to it. I found this problem while initially thinking full-body possession being switching is a myth. After thinking about it, I realized calling that a myth would do more harm than good because in some cases, switching is full-body possession. I have a narration tip/trick I'm excited about writing, and I'm part of my target audience because I feel this tip is the solution to my problem. I believe other systems that have already learned switching but maybe didn't sharpen their narration skills would find it helpful too. As for Gray's guide, I'm referring to this one: https://community.tulpa.info/topic/16772-how-to-refocus-on-your-wonderland/ I believe if you remove all of the author's bias, you lose the entire guide (edited)

I still don't know what a proxi and Alexandra approved guide would look like

Yuka

I still don't know what a proxi and Alexandra approved guide would look like

I'd assume it would be very clearly written with a lot of explanations as to what specifically certain things mean in the given context to avoid miscommunication as much as possible

Even a "just do it" guide is biased. Consider the following: How to make a tulpa: 1) Force more 2) Keep doing #1 The obvious bias is forcing is the most important thing about tulpa creation, so much so it's the only thing worth saying out loud. The less obvious bias is tulpamancy doesn't need elaboration. This could be because the author believes it's easy, because writing more would cause problems, coming up with your own thing is better, tulpamancy is just symbolism, etc. Also, consider that there isn't a "you're done" step, and it's a debate if you can ever finish creating a tulpa. Scale out a guide to a paragraph and I bet you could easily write several paragraphs about the author's bias and still not cover everything the author believes (edited)

@A long kiss goodnight Do you understand how presenting the subjective way that someone's system works as an objective fact can cause people problems?

Wouldn't a guide purged of all "here's how it works for me" end up largely being devoid of content and pretty ineffective/sanitized/culture-less? I'd much rather read a guide that informs me on how these different perspectives exist, then outlines steps on all the ways you can immerse yourself and create (experience you want to follow here). If I wanted to experience the result of my natural state of mind I would not try to create a tulpa in the first place.

Isn’t “this is how it works for me” a different perspective?

5:31 PM

The two approaches you mentioned can definitely work together in one guide and it would only make jt much more honest (edited)

Yeah, I'd think so at least. For example, I'd love to read a guide from someone that goes over how you need to set up a dining room so your tulpa eats, but I'd also want people reading that guide to understand that doing so is a choice. I would rather see this than see guides that avoid talking about setting up a dining room so your tulpa can eat - because once you start doing that you purge a lot of the beauty of tulpamancy - there's a lot of creative systems and behaviors that should be embraced and encouraged and spread rather than denied or supressed, and a creative system spreading from one person to another is 100% good in my books.

5:32 PM

I'm contrasting a guide that has no personal-forcing vs a guide that has personal-forcing, but also has a disclaimer - if that wasn't clear

The idea of "I have to create a tulpa the way other people have done it" is the actual problem. People need to be taught that they can write their own system narrative that suits them. Adding personal experiences to guides can give the impression that the personal experiences are objective truth about how your system must work. If these are going to be in a guide, I'd like to see them clearly marked and explained.

And - through the guide - it should be presented as fact - because that presentation is what makes it work- you treat it as fact

Reguile

And - through the guide - it should be presented as fact - because that presentation is what makes it work- you treat it as fact

not sure I agree with that. My system narrative works even tho we know we can change it to be whatever we want.

5:35 PM

So I think it's possible to know it's subjective and still have it work.

You know you can change it but do you have a tendency to disclaim yourself during the experiences "it doesn't have to work this way"?

Indeed. I'd second that knowing system-fluff is subjective doesn't make it any less subjective or make it less prone to control or change. It might actually make it easier to control if you know it's all subject to self-suggestion.

You can know it's arbitrary and can change, but if you're focused too much on that fact you'll kill the way it works. Like watching a movie where through the entire experience there are pop ups that show how "yeah this guy was just on ropes" and later on "these explosions were actually created by shredded wood burning"

Y'know I increasingly feel like tulpamancy guides should have a preface about hypnosis and suggestion lol.

Reguile

I mean, I'm not always thinking about how it's subjective, but I do come around to considering that carefully on a regular basis, in the context of whole-system health.

So is the main argument here between “guides should be less specific so that it’s more accessible to a wider audience and applicable for more situations” versus “guides should be more specific to prevent any chances of miscommunication and mistakes that could be avoided if instructed correctly”?

Reguile

This is still doable if you know it's happening and you know the mindset required to make it happen.

5:39 PM

It's like people who claim knowing cinematography ruins the experience. It doesn't; Your mindset is doing that. (edited)

5:40 PM

People need to learn to switch their mindset to suggestible, relaxed mode in general.

I agree, but a big part of the way it's done is suspending your disbelief. If you don't have the spacing/priming/mindset to do it you're way less likely to pull it off. Like, show a cinematography demo to 100 people then have them watch the movie, they're going to be way more likely to not have ended up immersed in it.

5:41 PM

So if a guide sprinkles a constant layer of disclaimer over everything, it's undermining a big part of it's purpose. Ideally you'd space apart the place where users are infomed, and the guides themselves, and further even the practice of forcing, as much as possible (edited)

Zen

People need to learn to switch their mindset to suggestible, relaxed mode in general.

Easier said than done. Brains are hardwired to become more callous to new information, especially when it contradicts previously 'known' information

Indeed. Which is sort of why I think making some statements on how suggestion works based on the state you're in - relaxed, not anxious; accepting, not questioning; etc. is kind of important.

5:44 PM

Practice is nearly irrelevant; we know this. It's state-based thinking we need to get people to wrap their minds around.

5:45 PM

Symbology can be shared if it's sufficiently culture-wide, but it's better to know how to make it work in a vaccuum than to try symbolism and then get frustrated that it simply doesn't work for you since you weren't properly primed on how to achieve the state.

System narrative should be the informed choice of that system, not forced upon them by their ignorance of how suggestion works. The fact that the suggestion might work better if people don't know it's suggestion is not an acceptable justification for manipulating others. The primary goal should not be successful tulpamancy, the primary goal should be the health of the system.

I'd agree with that too. A lack of information is what causes unpredictable outcomes.

Might be talking about different things - the thing I primarily do not want to see is guides being purged of personal experiences

There's no way to put a guide into "my system lore is fact" without knowing that it's objectively wrong or you being ignorant.

5:51 PM

By all means personal experiences are fine. Fascinating even.

5:51 PM

But there's a difference between that and claiming things that are factually incorrect across all tulpas.

5:53 PM

Frankly there's a lot in tulpamancy that I've wondered if it's meaningfully real in any way. That might just be there because we collectively accept as much. The notion of a front might be nonsensical when nothing can be cognizant outside of the front's gaze, for example.

As for health - I tend to take a view that health depends way more on the person than the guides they read. I remember seeing certain individuals coming from the tulpa community, clearly unhealthy and detached, getting and participating in others processes, and suddenly a few days later those other communities were terrified that they were making people unhealthy. They were fine, though, and worried over nothing. There were also about a half billion signs the person they were dealing with was detached and dangerous-to-themselves, but those signs were ignored or not noticed. I'm learning that's true in 90% of cases - you need good people more than you need good processes. Focus hard on having good, trustworthy individuals, and you won't have to worry about keeping them inside tiny walls and worried they'll stick knives in electrical outlets. (edited)

Ranger Do you understand how presenting the subjective way that someone's system works as an objective fact can cause people problems?

Yes, but I disagree that a guide should be viewed as doctrine in the first place. Anyone who reads a guide and believes "tulpamancy must be this way" is equally doomed to believe bad mindsets they come up with on their own like "you can only talk to tulpas in lucid dreams". If anything, the guide would help them realize there are multiple ways to think about tulpamancy, and if it fails them by inspiring a bad mindset, people on Discord and elsewhere likely know about the guide's shortcomings and how to explain why they don't apply. Keep in mind that people on Discord can also inspire bad mindsets, which is why having multiple sources of information is better than none. I agree that there are guide authors who go out of their way to say this is how all tulpamancy works and those people need a lot of feedback telling them they're wrong. However, I think there are benifits to a more formal style. In a guide format, I think my advice is more clear and easy to read than me rambling on Discord. The matter of fact sound comes from my confidence in what I think and my passion for what I believe, but I don't think this tone should be silenced. If it was, people can still manage to confuse themselves over my ideas on how I believe things work. === (edited)