This is not targeted at any specific person, just a general vent about a gripe I’ve had for a long time.

Controversial Opinion Time: I think the tulpamancy community often tries too hard to “look serious” to outsiders. To be frank, it’s like watching children on a playground trying to “act adult”.

A behavior shouldn’t be discouraged just because you’re afraid of how it’ll look to outsiders. Using that reasoning, all kinds of things currently accepted in the community–fictives, tulpas having their own accounts, even Chatturdays–should be banned. If fear and need for others’ approval are what drive your decisions, then you’re in the wrong community. If you feel a need for the community to change itself to match your standards of “adult enough”, then instead of harassing others to fit your personal patterns of behavior–something that I personally find immature and off-putting in itself–be the change you want to see yourself.

Some people are worried that we’re driving other people away. Judging by the number of newcomers we get, we aren’t. The community is in no danger of dying and in no need to “recruit”. Some will be turned away, but again, to be frank–if someone’s scared of what other people think of them, tulpamancy wasn’t the community for them. I personally don’t think it’s a loss big enough to justify introducing arbitrary standards of what’s “mature enough” into the community.

Some people are worried that we’re not “scientific enough.” I’m going to be blunt. A lot of the people in the tulpamancy community don’t even understand how science works–even basic ideas like how terminology isn’t absolute, or how we’re ultimately all speculating in the end, or how lack of proof is not disproof! Nor are people under any obligation to be scientific in order to participate. Seriously. No more than lucid dreamers are required to be scientific in order to lucid dream. We’re a community that, at its core, is dedicated to making brain buddies, and that’s what people come here for.

And judging by the fact that we’ve already attracted several scientists, I don’t think we need to be afraid of driving actual scientists away, either. Because to a good scientist, how “mature” or “immature” the thing you’re studying matters balls next to the topic itself. A scientist doesn’t come to judge. They come to observe. It’s why, in the culture of anthropology, you see a lot of frustration about how modern society conceptualizes non-industrialized societies as “backwards” or whatever instead of recognizing that societies, even the non-industrialized ones, are adapted to their environment. It’s not about personal opinions of acceptability, it’s about seeing what is. And honestly, trying to keep scientists from seeing all the facets of the community, whether it be the >15 age group or the people who have sex with their tulpas, comes off as extremely disingenuous.

I am not saying we should allow any and all behaviors, mind. We should ask people to post in Progress Report Sunday threads instead of making new threads on the subreddit every single time their tulpa does a thing–however, we should ask this not so we can avoid “looking childish”, but to keep the subreddit from being cluttered up. We should ask hosts to refrain from writing pages and pages of off-topic banter between themselves and their tulpas in a busy chat, but because such banter is off-topic and pages of such banter are best relegated to headspace conversations, not because we’re afraid of “looking childish”. We should ask people to treat each other respectfully and take criticism and skepticism with grace, not because it “looks good” but because it fosters personal growth and a positive environment. See the trend? If you’re going to judge a behavior, judge it by additional criteria, because “it’s immature” is hella unreliable by itself.

This whole rant could have been cleaned up better and made neater both in reasoning and structure, but I’m tired and ticked off and besides, Rain’s in the process of drawing a kickass Art Nouveau piece and I’m not going to distract him from it anymore than I already am.

Falah/Architect out.

PS: From the kinder side of me: I’m sorry I’ve been gone for so long and this is the first thing you get back from us. I promise I’ll put something up that’s less contentious later.