Assorted AnE meta thoughts on the tulpa concept
Thoughts randomly stacked together, some that will go into fics and some that I’m throwing out into the void.
A thought: demons admire human imagination, or at least Meph does, and they're anyhow all dependent on it because that's how we believe them into being.
What if some Meph-minded demon tried to secure that fluctuating resource? Y'know, like we drill into the ground to access oil and put it in handy little containers to use when needed. We talked about media and fandoms being a modern version of faith/a belief battery, but what if you tried to do it literally? Literally extracting a human's imagination out of their head, bottling it?
What is an imagination when separated from the mind? All creators swear blind that "imagination/creativity has a life of its own" so maybe it could work - maybe there would even be more of the imagination if you separated it from the rest of the mind with all its "gotta get groceries" and "gotta focus on the road when I drive" hamperings. A more refined product.
And that raises the question: what are humans without imagination? How much does that define us? There would be no development of sciences or crafts, for one thing. Everything would stand still, be static. There would be no change, which Meph would absolutely hate since change is his essence.
Are we humans simply vessels, not just for demons but for imagination? We've been presented a dichotomy of humans and demons as the existing players on the field, but isn't it in fact that both humans and demons are just products of imagination, and the one true sustaining, living thing that creates us all is imagination?
Hello, welcome to my TED talk on existentialism!
Is a demon possessing a human like a bit of our imagination that left our heads and is now trying to move back in? Coming home after going to college in nightmare land? "Hello mum/dad, I'm back!! :D" "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH YOUR HAIR AND IS THAT A NOSE PIERCING??? I DID NOT RAISE YOU LIKE THIS!!!"
...or maybe it's like nail clippings/bits of us that we shed and now they're scuttling up our trouser legs trying to reattach to our fingers...
It just makes me think that yes, of course demons would long to get into Assiah and possess people. It's like going home. It's sweet childhood memories of tasting and touching and smelling things.
Also consider: demon cornering you in an alley, slowly crawling towards you with fangs bared - and then you see it. At first you think it's your frightened-to-death brain playing tricks on you, but a second glance and you're more certain. In the demon's features there's traces of the imaginary pet you had when you were five. And as you start seeing it - start imagining that you see it - it becomes more and more clear that the creature before you is your pet, gone feral over the years since you abandoned it. It remembers you, too. There's hurt and abandonment in its eyes, but also hope. That it will be welcome back. That both of you, despite being battered by life for decades, still have some left of the connection you lost so many years ago.
What if demons aren't just the nightmares our minds plague us with, but also the dreams we lost?
