It's Mashup Monday!

With a lot of projects about 75% complete, I am turning to my bookshelves to provide inspiration for today's post. I'm gonna pull out two books and see where they lead me. I close my eyes, grab at the shelves and what do I find?

Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs, a fascinating collection of interviews with Americans who have different jobs. 

... and an issue of Fortean Times in which Ian "Cat" Vincent talks about the idea of Slenderman being a tulpa, a being created by the thoughts of those who discuss him online, which was also not quite the plot of an episode of Supernatural.

Let's get in there and see what we've got. First, an account by a woman who is a homicide detective:

And this is what I mean about these muthafuckas. ... he looks at me and he says, "You know what, Officer Childs?" He say, "I'm not angry or upset with you. Because I just love the way you got me." And then he smiles and he says, "You know? In another time and place you coulda been my woman."

Aggggghh! You know? This job makes it hard on relationships, and whatever -- I ain't even going to go into that -- but that hurt. Like, how do I always get chose by killers? Men who have absolutely nothin' going for themselves? Aggggh! [Laughs] You know? "In another place and time, you could have been my woman!" I just don't believe this. A heroin addict killer old man. That's who's comin' on to me. [Laughs] I just say, "Okay, Mr Boyce. All right."

Our second extract is the tulpa section I mentioned before.

So -- we have a vain murderer who fancies himself a ladies' man, and we have a tulpa originating from the collective belief of credulous young people on the internet. Please note that Vincent is aware that this is not what a tulpa actually means in Tibetan Buddhism, but the David-Neel meaning has (I'm sorry) taken on a life of its own.

And now, a scenario seed for a modern day occult/paranormal game:

Lefty Sloane

Like a whirlwind, Lefty Sloane is tearing through the Heights, taking over rackets, muscling out punks and thumbing his nose at the law. In a few short months, he's become king of the hill. There's only one problem: Lefty Sloane is twenty years older than this new kid, and rotting in a cell to boot. Talk to Kowalski in Robbery, he'll tell you Lefty Sloane was a bum and a junkie with nothing but a big mouth.

It's the big mouth that's the problem -- over years of telling the tales of his greatness, Lefty's actually come to believe them. Locked up in the Gardens with nothing to do but spin tales, silver-tongued Lefty's got the whole prison population thrilling to his tales of the good old days, when he romanced beautiful women, pulled off daring heists, smacked any fool who talked shit to him in the mouth, and fought the cops when they came after him. And now, that Lefty is on the loose in the form of a tulpa. 

But why now? Is it something to do with the drugs Lefty's on -- and how are they getting into the prison anyway? Does something in the Gardens focus these dreams in some way? And how can Lefty's tulpa be stopped, given that part of his whole deal is that he takes shit from no cop?