It's this black spaded tail with a rubbery texture that you often see on cute devils. I imagine that if I licked it, it would taste like licorice, but I fear that at the moment that would count as unsolicited sexual contact.

Just don't chew on it.

Tried to imagine playing on a xylophone, and I could hear a basic scale and an arpeggio, but not much more. Tried to get Melo to try, and she appeared to just repeatedly hit one of the lower keys, which somehow produced a high pitched note.

That's what I love about tuppering. Might as well have been an elephant's trumpet. You never know what's gonna happen.

How tall is Melo supposed to be?
My tupper is about 140cm which is also some height difference though I am no giant.  In familiar surroundings I have enough reference spots to get her height about right but at least for me it's way more difficult if she is moving from or towards me in a greater distance. I've found that using people of similar height is a great help. I let tupper follow them as they move around to get an idea how sizes change with distance.
Just don't stare at little girls for too long and get yourself arrested

She's 130cm. Don't judge.

Who, me?

Just an advice from a perfectionist:
Don't overthink stuff, just go with the flow. Even if odd things happen.
Of course you can try to emulate the real world as closely as possible but I think that doesn't do the endless possibilities a wonderland has to offer justice. I started like that but in the end it turned out completely different anyway. Don't let the idea that everything has to make sense restrict your or tupper's creativity.
And don't forget to let Melo create more parts of your world. I'm sure she'll come up with some neat stuff.

Having a wonderland that can operate free of real world logic does sound kinda nice. I guess I'll try to liberate myself a little from Newtonian physics.

And we're at day 5 already. Mostly just narrated today. Had a lot to think about regarding what I want for myself out of tulpaforcing. I've had this vague idea for a while that I want a tupper who is also my muse, supporting and inspiring me in creative pursuits and believing in me when I can't believe in myself, and I feel that being more concrete about that would add a lot to my drive to force. But ultimately, this would end up concerning Melo so much that I can't just decide on it without hearing what she has to say after becoming fully vocal. For now, I think the best I can do is teach her the joy of expression. Which is another vague idea, but maybe I'll come up with something.

Yes, that would be quite effect, if not as charming as I had imagined it. Also, thanks for reminding to catch up on oglaf.

Day 6. Almost there. Been slipping on the forcing schedule, though. Nothing unexpected, it's really easy to skip a session if it's inconvenient, and it's often inconvenient when it's every hour. 10 minutes every 2 hours might work out better, but I'll keep trying at least another day with this schedule, because never going more than an hour without giving the tup some kind of attention feels like a really nice principle to have.

First session today I didn't use the timer, figuring I'd just go a little longer to make up for putting it off. But it actually made it harder. Lacking the commitment of the timer, I found myself much more distracted by all the things I could be doing if I stopped forcing right away. Obviously I don't want to depend on a timer forever, especially since it can sometimes completely pull me out of a session, but for now I think it's helping me more than it's obstructing me.

Following some of the thoughts I had yesterday, I've been reading a little about the creative process of great composers and writers. Wouldn't surprise me if there were people throughout history who used something similar a tulpa in their creative process, but hard to find any concrete examples. Maybe Dante's Beatrice existed within him as more than just the woman he met, considering he spent his whole life obsessing over her and dedicating his writing to her despite only meeting her twice? Who knows. What ultimately interested me more was reading about how Shostakovitch would compose all of his works in his head, not needing to play it out along the way, just writing it down after finishing it in his head. That's exactly the kinda thing I wanna train myself to be able to do. I honestly have no clue if it's something I can learn, or if it's just a freak talent of savant composers, but surely only good can come out of gradually training myself to reproduce different timbers and tones in my head and trying to turn them into melodies and harmonies. Even if it doesn't turn into a useful skill, it should help with musical memory. Gotta teach Melo to sing one of these days too. Had this short session today where I tried to make up a new instrument consisting of bells with various pitches, and pedals to operate them. Wanted to play a chord on it, but can't do that with only 2 feet, so I got her to help me out. You could say we're in harmony now.

I'm not that distracted! I'm just having my monthly existential crisis on the side and trying to figure out how I can channel it into forcing harder. But yeah, I could do another week. Better than risking falling off completely again.

Day 7. Had one of those days where visualization just failed me completely. Couldn't get myself to see her form at all. Tried to zoom in and do one part at a time, but it fell apart when focusing on more than one part. Tried to zoom out and just see her silhouette, but couldn't add any detail to it. Ended up spending a lot of time on it, but felt like I was beating my head against a wall. Not particularly worried, I figure it's just something that happens some days, but it's pretty frustrating to get worse instead of better, even if it's just momentarily. I got a few ideas for things to try if it persists tomorrow.

Otherwise I've just been keeping Melo's silhouette with me while seeing what weird stuff my imagination can come up with in wonderland. Like a landscape made up of hexagon cylinders, shifting in height to make up hills and mountains. In a bit of a nostalgic mood, I suddenly remembered this tower I built very shortly after I started forcing, but later demolished in favor of a bigger and more impressive tower. I went to the second floor, the one with the bed, and I remembered how I used to visualize cuddling with Melo there when going to sleep at night. That's ages ago now, might as well never have happened, but somehow visiting that place brings it right back, like visiting a childhood home. Really fascinating. Put that tower right back where it used to be, mostly for my own nostalgia, but maybe, just maybe, some of Melo's first memories are tied to that place.

Forcing schedule worked somewhat better today. Partly because I reminded myself that the reason I set 5 minutes is that there's no excuse for putting off something that will just take 5 minutes. And partly because I realized how retarded it is to declare myself too tired to force at 21:00 when I've started going to bed at 4:00.

Well doesn't really have to be something worth telling anyone. Tuppers just sometimes have to deal with boring stuff too?!

Yeah, I think I just got too focused on the idea of narrating at some point. So I got better at forming my stream of consciousness into something more cohesive, but I forgot about the more important part: Actually directing it towards the tupper. Basically, it's better to direct the occasional random thought the right way, than to send a whole speech into the void.

Day 9 was a crap day. Woke up late and didn't feel very motivated for anything, just wanted to go back to bed and wait for tomorrow. But "it's just 5 fucking minutes, man" is still a really powerful idea. The same arguments I'd use to tell myself it's okay to not bother when I have a bad day aren't as effective against the 5 minute rule. I can just jump back into the routine at any moment instead of telling myself I'll do better tomorrow to make up for not following the routine today. That's not to say that today was worth patting myself on the back for, but my top priority right now is just staying in the game, and not falling out and forgetting about all this for a month again.

Did some of the usual stuff. Narrating, visualizing, humming. Also tried to do some open eyed forcing, just imagining her standing various places, while I walked around the room. Somehow talking towards a physical spot I imagine she's standing at makes it easier to focus, it increases my range of expression to something resembling talking to a fellow human, something mindvoice frequently fails at. But I also can't imagine her moving around at all during this, probably due to visualization being much harder with eyes open.

I think I'm ready to try some more extended sessions. I know I have it in me under the right circumstances, and there's the occasional feeling of the 5 minute rule cutting me off just as it starts getting good (while I can technically go on beyond the 5 minutes, knowing that the 5 minutes are over makes me give up more easily). I'll see what I'm in the mood for tomorrow.

Even if it is just a meme, can't you live the meme?