My long sort-of-back post. (has some heavy stuff)

Hey all. Falunel/Silver Halcyon here, if anyone remembers me. I've been lurking Reservia on and off and finally decided to maybe try posting again- hope you guys have been well.

A lot's happened since I was last active on the original TSF (RIP). The main happenings were school- and mental health-related; I essentially got shoved into a major and career path I detested, and to make matters worse, was pressured constantly on grades by my parents, which of course made me do worse and led to a painful downward spiral. Following some severe social anxiety and depression, which led to suicidal downs (thankfully, never to the point that I actually harmed myself) and my locking myself in my room and skipping classes for six weeks, I've finally started to get ahold of things, though I'm still working on getting my life in place.

Some other things that have happened: I've become a regular and dedicated Guild Wars 2 player (though my playtime's been limited lately due to school). If anyone plays and wants to add me, my account name is Falunel.7645. I primarily work on mentoring new players, mastering the elementalist class, and making videos (tutorials and lore preservation). I'm also an officer in a guild that's a safe space for LGBTQ players, female players, players from any other group that gets harassed in MMOs, and their allies. I myself now identify as a fringe-ish member of the LGBTQ community myself (demisexual with strong leanings toward asexuality).
Here's a video made by another officer in the guild, of a dungeon run she and I did with some other guildmates and a friend. She, the friend, and I were on TeamSpeak- my voice is the annoying one that keeps talking during cutscenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f10vSDjyMI
If anyone wants to see one of my own videos, here's a short piece I did to demonstrate the playstyle of a staff elementalist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qteqpU0JIs

I've also started playing Yu-Gi-Oh through the Yu-Gi-Oh Pro: Dawn of a New Era online simulator. It's a safe, free, and complete program that has every card available for no cost and has all rules and combos programmed with very few (none that I've seen so far) bugs. I run a Spirit Monster deck and am working on refining it and my knowledge of the game, but haven't been able to play as much due to school and other projects.

I'm currently minoring in Creative Writing and working on three blogs. All are under construction or new, but the links are in my sig if you want to look at them. The first, Greyling (http://falunel.wordpress.com/), is devoted to my creative writing and occasionally some other stuff; the second, Visions of Gray (http://visionsofgray.wordpress.com/), is devoted to my work with my tulpa; the third, which I've yet to publish, is my Guild Wars 2 blog. (edit: Apparently I can't have a sig yet, so I added the links here.) I'm hoping to participate in some campus writing activities and maybe even publish someday. I am also a member of the LGBTQ Pride group on campus, spend some Friday afternoons reading to little kids, and like to go to poetry readings.

I've also started creating a tulpa, which is basically a sentient thoughtform. It's a hard thing to explain and will likely cause many people to think I've gone off the deep end. If you've got an open mind about it and are curious about my decision to do so, my tulpa (who goes by the nickname "Gray"), and the idea behind the process, give these two pages on my blog a read:
-About tulpas: http://visionsofgray.wordpress.com/
-and about my own tulpa, Gray: http://visionsofgray.wordpress.com/about/

I'm not sure how active I'll be on Reservia, but I'll try to pop in regularly. Missed you guys.

Falunel wrote:

Hey all. Falunel/Silver Halcyon here, if anyone remembers me.

I do! Welcome back.

Back when I rejoined TSF in 2011 I was wondering briefly whether to create a new account with the name Procyan, as a play on Procyon Lotor and Cyan, which is why i remember your name.

Did I ever review a series of your poems, by any chance?

Quote :

I've also started playing Yu-Gi-Oh through the Yu-Gi-Oh Pro: Dawn of a New Era online simulator. It's a safe, free, and complete program that has every card available for no cost and has all rules and combos programmed with very few (none that I've seen so far) bugs. I run a Spirit Monster deck and am working on refining it and my knowledge of the game, but haven't been able to play as much due to school and other projects.

I'm going to abuse the virtual hell out of this when I've got the time. Thanks for telling me of its existence.

Quote :

I've also started creating a tulpa, which is basically a sentient thoughtform. It's a hard thing to explain and will likely cause many people to think I've gone off the deep end.

I would like to speak with you about tulpas at some point regarding a thought experiment I performed multiple times in the past. Basically what I'm wondering about is if it is possible for a "mental" entity to be the sole inhabitant of a body which is not its own. What I mean by that is that I want to know whether it is possible for a Tulpa to take full control of its creator's body when the creator's conscience ceases to exist.

I've asked the same about personality disorders, schizophrenia and imaginary friends in the past, with mixed results depending on the person asked. There does seem to be a general consensus of sorts, however.

Slivendiferious wrote:

Falunel wrote:

Hey all. Falunel/Silver Halcyon here, if anyone remembers me.

I do! Welcome back.

Back when I rejoined TSF in 2011 I was wondering briefly whether to create a new account with the name Procyan, as a play on Procyon Lotor and Cyan, which is why i remember your name.

Did I ever review a series of your poems, by any chance?

Thanks! And if you ever want that name, feel free to use it.

I think you did, though it was a long time ago. In any case, thanks for giving them a read.

Slivendiferious wrote:

Quote :

I've also started playing Yu-Gi-Oh through the Yu-Gi-Oh Pro: Dawn of a New Era online simulator. It's a safe, free, and complete program that has every card available for no cost and has all rules and combos programmed with very few (none that I've seen so far) bugs. I run a Spirit Monster deck and am working on refining it and my knowledge of the game, but haven't been able to play as much due to school and other projects.

I'm going to abuse the virtual hell out of this when I've got the time. Thanks for telling me of its existence.

Enjoy, and let me know how it goes! The program also has these neat "win in one turn" puzzles where you're cornered and have to pull off an elaborate combo to, as the title suggests, win in one turn. They're actually one of my favorite features. There's also AI dueling capability, but the AI is rather dumb- I Yata-Locked the AI for laughs and, when I watched the replay, saw that the AI had a Mirror Force it could have easily used to break my lock. Except it didn't. >.> (Also, I banned Yata-Garasu from my real deck, so if you ever want to duel me, don't worry about getting Yata-Locked yourself.)

Slivendiferious wrote:

Quote :

I've also started creating a tulpa, which is basically a sentient thoughtform. It's a hard thing to explain and will likely cause many people to think I've gone off the deep end.

I would like to speak with you about tulpas at some point regarding a thought experiment I performed multiple times in the past. Basically what I'm wondering about is if it is possible for a "mental" entity to be the sole inhabitant of a body which is not its own. What I mean by that is that I want to know whether it is possible for a Tulpa to take full control of its creator's body when the creator's conscience ceases to exist.

I've asked the same about personality disorders, schizophrenia and imaginary friends in the past, with mixed results depending on the person asked. There does seem to be a general consensus of sorts, however.

Hmm, I will say I'm not the best person to ask when it comes to tulpas- Gray hasn't been a tulpa for that long, and I don't plan on trying possession or switching since it might open some floodgates that hold the darker parts of my personality in check.

That being said, I personally think it'll depend upon how the creator's consciousness "dies." As long as the body and physical brain are intact and undamaged, the tulpa is, with the creator's permission, capable of controlling the body- this is how possession (where the tulpa controls the body and the creator watches) and switching (like possession, but the host takes the place of the tulpa in the mindscape) theoretically work. I say theoretically because possession/switching is an unexplained process, difficult to prove, and not well-documented. According to some accounts, the tulpa can become the dominant personality while the original creator becomes just a thoughtform. The creator, as a thoughtform, can then theoretically disintegrate over time, just as a mental ability disintegrates without practice, but some part of them will always exist. When it comes to people who are medically braindead due to brain damage, though... I'm not too sure about that.

Note that, with tulpas, possession and switching are voluntary processes- both the host and the tulpa have to consent to it and train themselves in order to do so. This consent is the difference between having a tulpa and having dissociative identity disorder- in DID, the switching is involuntary, distressing, and disruptive, while people with tulpa tend to live normally. There are some accounts of involuntary possession by tulpas, but many of those accounts are creepypasta rather than real accounts, and the more believable accounts tend to involve creators who practiced possession/switching extensively and tulpas who were not consciously planned/created. Regardless, it's why I'm cautious about the idea of opening myself up to possession or switching.

If you don't mind another wall of text, I think this may be of interest: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13dfI2tjhmRmBOZGGJvtv5jWqbqs9g1hYxPkNS9NJOkc/edit?pli=1

This is gonna take me a while but regardless of what another thinks about you due to this thread I will still be there given I never allow outside influences to dictate my way of thinking.Still editing what I initially was gonna to say

Good to see you. Welcome back!

Hey, nice to see another familiar face! Good to see you're well, Falunel.

Thanks, all. ^^ It's good to see people again.

Nice to meet ya ^_^

falunel ;_; I missed you! And I'm really proud of you for not ultimately submitting to your folks' will. I was in the same boat for a long time, and it totally wasn't worth the stress. Heck, it's still stressing, but it's not worth it in the end.

@Truly: Nice to meet you, too!

@Jazzeh: I always regretted not getting to know you better whenever I thought about TSF. ;_; And thank you for the encouragement- still getting stuff worked out, but I'm ultimately in a better spot than before.