#Somewhere and Yet Nowhere

[nevermatchandscpsradadventures]

i love them i can’t stop thinking about them ok ok

[n3arell-art]

statement recorded directly from subject March 15 2025 by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist

[timothyslucy]

i am once again asking

where... THE FUCK IS THIS MAN??!!!

[garden-of-mancers]

Do you have any examples of when you would want to send out an imaginary friend?

I do! I don't have any suggestions for a specific time to send an IF out, (I'd usually send one out overnight or for a few days, just whenever I felt the impulse to do so), but I do have examples for why you'd do it. Also, most of these suggestions are based in magic and witchcraft-flavored spirituality, so I understand if this stuff is really Not relevant to everyone.

A couple specific examples I can think of are as follows:

If you want them to become more autonomous or eventually leave you for good, sending them out is good practice. I know autonomy is more of a goal in traditional tulpamancy, but in my experience, having an IF who's done a few tasks unsupervised makes lucid dreaming with them a bit easier? In this case, sending them out is like a practice exercise; it's just one of the many activities you can do to increase their ability to act alone.

If you have some kind of mystical or non-material thing you want your IF to retrieve for you. Maybe you accidentally left another imaginary friend at an outing. Send your IF out to go get them! Does your IF come from another land where they have unique items? Send your IF out to go bring you some! (And you might spend their time away crafting the actual items for them to give you when they return.) If you've lost an item, there are many superstitious solutions to help you find them faster. Some I've heard of are astral projecting to look for the item, visualizing yourself finding it or having it, and saying the name of the item and sticking a sewing pin in a couch cushion. Well, why not send your IF out to look for the item? Who knows, it might turn up once they've returned. (And if it does, you can say your IF told you where to find it or that they put it there.)

If you just want to be alone. If you're doing a ritual or meditation that requires solitude, (something like the hide and seek alone creepypasta is the only thing I can think of off the top of my head lol), or if you're burned out socially and you need to make sure you stay alone, send them out. Sometimes when I'm in a bad place mentally and want to fight with everyone, it was nice to tell the one person I could control "We need some space" and let her vacation halfway across the world for a bit. If you think about them while they're gone, you can remind yourself that they're at the lake or whatever. And if they pop back in anyway, you can always say, "Hey, aren't you supposed to be at the lake?"

One psychological perk of having an IF is that you have a degree of control over them that you cannot exert over other people, pets, or headmates (if you're a system). I'm not saying this in a "you're my servant and you have to do what I say" kind of way; just that being able to create something, decide their appearance and traits, and have them come and go at your desire gives an IF's creator a level of autonomy and control that can be beneficial to your mental health. As an action, sending an IF out has the benefit of a caring act (packing, walking them to and from bus stop) AND asserting control over your environment. Hence: easy mental health hack.

Yes, I get that you can *technically* just make your IF disappear or stay in your headspace/inner world/wherever IFs go when they're not currently interacting with you. However, I prefer having near-omnipresent IFs. I'm unemployed and housebound, so it's not obtrusive for them to be there hangin out 24/7. So, whenever I get overwhlemed or DO want some alone time for more than a few hours, why not turn my IF's absence into a game or a part of their lore and experience?

And my final reason:

Just to let them go on an adventure! Honestly, I only started doing this because I had a travel journal that I never filled. I'm too disabled to travel now, so I would just send my old IF out to various locations and then write her adventures in the journal instead lol. It was a really cute journal! I wasn't gonna waste it lol.

-♥️-

(Sorry if this was overexplained or sounded patronizing. I am an overexplainer over text; if someone asks for clarification, I want to make SURE you get your answer the second time 'round 😂)

TL;DR: Sending an IF on an adventure by themselves can make them more autonomous, give them an active role in various magic spellwork, and provide psychological benefits for both the IF and the creator.

[kate-m-art]

I get it now, I get the hype, sassy vampire man beloved andjfkmsm

[peranna]

i've read about kim dokja's death so many times, but i never thought i will be denied of seeing him die as a demon king for so long.

[anawkwardlady]

I feel like the difference between @nullbutler and me is that you stumble into their content, cursed or not, kinda right on and general reaction would be "Oh yeah uhm... Welcome to the fandom, we haven't seen the light in ages, Null will show you the place" meanwhile to find me is more of a "Uh, how did you get there" kind of situation. It has to be an accident.

[etchif]

PAUSE..... you live in a little village?🌲🌲🌲🌲 🦔🐿🐏🏡☀🌲🌲🌲🌲❓❓❓❓❓❓ Are there any gnomes there

Yeah it's right by a forest too every time I go outside I have to be careful. lest those gnomes get me

[drop--pop--candy]

marley likes orange (the flavoring). unclear whether they like orange (the fruit) and/or orange (the color)

[olympiansally]

The way I’ll only be happy if Kyoka is the one to save Aya, continuing the cycle of saved orphans saving others

[vipier-a]

every day I fight the wolf inside of me that tells me to canonize that tristan has at least traces of a southern accent in any modern au but I can’t decide whether it would be inland ( appalachian / tennessee ) or coastal ( georgian ) or how developing it works with the menagerie situation yet. all I know is I hear him with an accent esp when he gets pissed.

[daisywords]

the worst part about being a pianist is that you can't just...simply take your instrument with you

[crossroadsdimension]

Well, that's some good progress.

Currently in Chapter 50 for Distant Cousins (going up early February if anyone's curious) and I'm winding down from a pretty big boss fight in chapter 49.

Not gonna say what the boss fight was, but considering where my readers are at as of last week...I wonder if anyone keeping up with the crossover has any Ideas as to my current whereabouts.

[wrenanigans]

Sometimes finding a ship for your OC is like mashing Barbie dolls together. Sometimes it’s like running experiments to find the ideal chemical solution. Sometimes it’s like comparing paint swatches to your dining room wall.

And sometimes, your OC just shows up on your doorstep holding hands with some throwaway side character and goes, “yeah we’re in love now actually. and we’re gonna find each other in every universe”

[nerdie-faerie]

Was tryna say goodbye to my siblings before going back to uni but I couldn't find my littlest brother - who has a tendency to put himself in weird places then fall asleep - turns out this time he'd folded himself into the futon and fallen asleep

[blood-orange-juice]

If there's one thing that will drive me away from the Netherlands it's the car noise.

There isn't a single place in the country where you can't hear cars in the background.