Author Topic: Meromero Days  (Read 106012 times)

Re: Meromero Days
« Reply #75 on: September 11, 2016, 09:21:25 PM »
Quote from: Kirarin
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.

Quote from: Kirarin
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

Re: Meromero Days
« Reply #76 on: September 12, 2016, 06:43:18 PM »
She's 130cm. Don't judge. For the longest time, I really struggled to visualize her even a meter away from me. She'd just suck up to me like a magnet when I tried to move away. As romantic as that sounds, it made it kinda hard to visualize her properly. Anyway, I think this was because my only reference point at the time was my own body, I just imagined her reaching up to my chest, which is easy to imagine when she's right next to me, but hard to imagine when she's further away. Pretty sure this got better last time I made some reference points in my apartment and just imagined Melo standing next to them while walking around her. But just because she's not a magnet anymore doesn't mean I can't use more training.

Day 4 was kinda lazy. Woke up late, so I missed a few potential forcing timeslots just to that. Didn't have a lot of ideas for things to do either, but I remembered this set of drawings showing some weird futuristic world that's completely flooded and has catgirls. Always seemed like a cool place to explore, so I put that portal to use and took her there. Then I spent a lot of time thinking about how those platforms in the water works. They can't be floating on the water, because that wouldn't be stable enough. But does that mean they just have a structure underneath connecting them to the seabed? How would such a structure work anyway? Do they require less or more stability than structures built on land? But if the height is fixed, what happens during tide? Would a planet covered in water even have tide? World building is hard. And not really what I set out to do. But it's hard for me to not think about how things work before trying to figure out how it would look. Without resolving all of that, I figured that the first step in such a world would be to get into a boat. I got in just fine, but when Melo went it, the whole thing just toppled over. Weird stuff. I've lifted her before and she's not that heavy. I think my physics engine is bugged.

Re: Meromero Days
« Reply #77 on: September 12, 2016, 08:55:27 PM »
Quote from: Kirarin
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.

Re: Meromero Days
« Reply #78 on: September 13, 2016, 08:20:32 AM »
Your mind's pretty good at filling in the blanks. Might not stand up to scrutiny, but indeed if you just go with the flow, you might not notice the strange things that are off and it just looks normal to you.

Re: Meromero Days
« Reply #79 on: September 13, 2016, 08:43:11 PM »
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.

Re: Meromero Days
« Reply #80 on: September 14, 2016, 06:37:36 AM »
Muses remind me of this (nsfw warning there's like, a bare breast also don't look anywhere else).

Re: Meromero Days
« Reply #81 on: September 14, 2016, 09:30:46 PM »
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.

Re: Meromero Days
« Reply #82 on: September 15, 2016, 07:28:42 AM »
Seeing these constant distractions and such and you being disappointed with your sessions, you should go for another week.

Re: Meromero Days
« Reply #83 on: September 15, 2016, 08:21:40 PM »
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.

Re: Meromero Days
« Reply #84 on: September 16, 2016, 09:40:38 PM »
Day 8. Had another hypnagognic hallucination when going to sleep last night, imagining myself in that bed, hugging tulpa. Was a voice declaring its love for me. Though this time it was a male voice. Kinda awkward. I'm no homo, bro. I'm gonna assume that tups with no clearly established mindvoice sometimes just end up hijacking voices from recent memories.

Didn't feel as stuck on visualization today, fortunately. It's still not easy by any means, but I can work with it.Gonna dedicate a little more time looking at reference images to recreate in my mind, and trying to visualize close to real life objects I know are the same height as her, since I know those two things help.

My go-to strategy now when I'm forcing and can't think of what to do is to try to make some sounds. For instance, I tried parroting Melo humming Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, which turned out to be one of my better experiences with imagining sound. Melodies like that are supposed to be memorable and easy to hum, so they're good to practice with. Definitely something I wanna do more of.

Passive forcing has felt like a bit of a struggle the past few days, but I think a part of that is me focusing so much on forming cohesive thoughts that I forget that I'm actually supposed to direct those thoughts somewhere. So 10 minutes into a philosophical monologue, I suddenly remember that I just wanted to tell Melo that the weather today is nice. Gonna practice more on shutting up and just focusing on her until I got something worth telling her.

Re: Meromero Days
« Reply #85 on: September 17, 2016, 07:08:20 AM »
Well doesn't really have to be something worth telling anyone. Tuppers just sometimes have to deal with boring stuff too?!

Re: Meromero Days
« Reply #86 on: September 17, 2016, 05:58:02 PM »
Hypnagogic hallucinations can bring up extremely weird stuff. At least for me they are nearly impossible to control or shape into something useful and I assume it's even more difficult for tuppers. After all your brain is half asleep. So I wouldn't concern myself too much with their meaning.

Quote from: Kirarin
So 10 minutes into a philosophical monologue, I suddenly remember that I just wanted to tell Melo that the weather today is nice. Gonna practice more on shutting up and just focusing on her until I got something worth telling her.
Happens to me as well.
Tupper sometimes manages to knock me out of that routine after a short while asking who the hell I'm talking to.
 
While shutting up your mindvoice and listening is always a good practice I recommend training yourself to generally direct your personal thoughts at your tupper. They don't have to be super exciting, it's the tought that counts no pun intended
Don't forget to tell Melo all the traits and little details you like about her.
Anyway, I think relaying positive emotions and showing that you care is even more important than words, especially early on.

Re: Meromero Days
« Reply #87 on: September 18, 2016, 12:49:20 AM »
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.

Re: Meromero Days
« Reply #88 on: September 19, 2016, 07:03:03 AM »
Day 10. Another crappy day. Spent most of the day feeling tired, and it's unsurprisingly difficult to focus deeply while fighting back the urge to fall asleep. Had to settle for a few 5 minute sessions of light visualization. I actually really long for a longer session as soon as I have some more energy to spare, there's definitely some things I wanna do that I never get around to if I just let myself quit after 5 minutes.

On another note, I've noticed I've been getting vivid dreams very consistently lately, which I'm guessing is because I've been training my visualization skills every day. Just neat to see that my effort is taking some kind of effect, even if it's a mostly unrelated one. But if the trend continues, maybe I can one day see for myself whether this meeting your tupper in a lucid dream thing is just a meme.

Re: Meromero Days
« Reply #89 on: September 19, 2016, 08:43:30 AM »
Even if it is just a meme, can't you live the meme?