#- entire childhood so bad that he literally is unable to function without help and has the social skills of an actual child and -

[npdkondraki]

i think the way i talk about theresa & sam on here is so funny. its all shitposts and then anytime i try to talk about their actual lore it makes me sound like im fucking insane

[fipindustries]

Mouth Dreams analysis

MOUTH DREAMS

I dont even need to introduce to you the marvelous mash up works of neil cicierega’s mouth trilogy (now quadrilogy i guess). We all know them, we all love them and we all have our own interpretations of what they mean. For some merely musical shitposting, for others clever experimentation laden with phrases, leivmotifs and themes repeating here and there, and for many a deep and rich bounty of lore, hidden messages, subtextual stories and underlying narratives implied across multiple variations of all star, hidden in the meta data and uncovered only after doing spectrographic analysis on the soundwaves of the songs after being played at x0.000003 times the speed. It is usually understood that all the albums together form a unique and rich tapestry, a coherent whole that can be understood in its totality. Im not here to do that.

I came up with my own interpretation of what Mouth Dreams can be read as, independent from the other albums. Think of it as me presenting this entry as the soundtrack of a musical with its own self contained story. It is the interpretation that i chose to go by and i hope its understood the brilliance of these albums lies on how weird and vague and open ended they are such that any number of different readings can be extracted from them. So lets see the one i extracted, without further ado, lets begin.

Yahoo

It is an out of context, in media res, start for the whole story. We hear a voice, echoing in the void, yelling at the top of its lungs, reaching desperately for human conection. One form of looking at this song is that the voice only receives an empty response from its own echoes, but i dont take it like that. The song is too sublime and too beautiful for these, the notes soaring too high, the desperate plead is being answered. Someone is listening to the plead and answering right back, harmonizing.

This whole album is in a way that howl, reaching to others, and we the audience are answering back, listening. But also on another level, this whole album is the protagonist telling the tragic story of his own life to some sympathetic figure who wants to help, perhaps a therapist, perhaps a friend, perhaps a partner, we’ll see. And as the yelling subsides the story starts proper.

Mouth dreams (intro)

We are being slowly taken into the story, entering the psyche of the main character, entering their subconscious, their dreams, their memories and therefore, their past. We’ll see what life they led and how they ended up where they are now and we start right at his infancy with….

Spongerock

Spongebob is a great indicator that we are seeing this person’s early childhood. They seem to be a rambunctious and energetic child. Cheerful and enthusiastic, yet there seems to be some underlying aggression there. The music is a bit to strong, and in comes freddy mercury berating the poor kid “you’ve got mud on your face, you big disgrace”. Who is this entity being so hostile to a poor kid? What lies beneath that image of a happy kid? We are about to see on the next song.

Just a baby

This is where trouble starts. We are treated to a dramatic song about a poor young baby who seems to be having a pretty sad life. Justin bieber, former teen idol, keeps lamenting about the poor baby being stuck in baby jail. This song is very much about loss of innocence. A shadowy figure of the mother is introduced who tells the protagonist to be a good boy. And almost at the end of the song we get a suggestion of what’s so wrong on this poor kid’s life. His mother apparently “shot a man in reno”. We dont know if this is a literal thing the mother did or if this is a metaphor for the mother doing something horrible, commiting some crime, harming someone in some way. While its not clarified we see strong hints of what the mother could have done in the next song

Superkiller

As we worry what may be so wrong with this kid’s mother we come across the title for this song, ominous. Now in the original Psycho killer the killer was clearly the singer, but in here the song is twisted and turned a bit, recontextualized by the beats of “cant touch this”. It seems like this time is the singer the one who doesnt want to be touched by some nefarious figure (the mother? Is the mother a psycho killer?) maybe the kid saw the mother killing people “i dont like people when they’re on fire”. whatever the case might be the kid is clearly strung up and under a lot of stress and we are introduced to the first hint of the insomnia that will plague this persons life who cant sleep because “my bed’s on fire”. The horrible situation in which this kid is living is taking a severe toll on their mental health. How is he going to cope with this?

Get happy

I think everyone can agree that “come on get happy” is incredibly unnerving when mindlessly repeated over and over. A first read might suggest the kid is forced to put on a happy face, to pretend that there is nothing wrong going on with their life. But as the song progresses it could also be interpreted as the kid being tempted to find refuge from the horror by unsavory methods “get happy” as in acquire happiness of a forced and artificial kind, perhaps drugs. But also “we’ll make you happy”. The kid is not running into a rabbit hole on their own, they are being invited. Its possible that the kid is being seduced by a bad crowd to move into seedy circles as an escape from their life.

Ribs

In here we see the kid, probably a young teenager by this point as suggested by the use of marylin manson in this song, falling deep into debauchery. The specific kind is not needed to know, it could be drugs, it could be sexual experimentation, it could be criminality. Point is this is unhealthy and dangerous and depraved, emphasized by the title of the song “ribs” as a reference to the rumor that marilyn manson removed two of his ribs in order to perform autofellatio. Whatever the case it clearly works, the song is actually a great bop, energetic and upbeat, the kid is content with the situation, at least for a while…

My mouth

This song is the coming down from the high. In here we see at full blast how the life of depravity on the one side and their situation at home on the other have turned the character into a hardcore insomniac, their health is severy compromised “My eyes feel like they're gonna bleed

Dried up and bulging out my skull”. Another way to read this song is as we momentarily cutting back to the present. After all, what we have been seeing until now has been dreams/memories and this is a short look at the wreck that the person is as a grown up, stirring awake from their memories and trying desperately to forget or to go back to sleep where they can have a reprieve. As evidenced by the next song

Aerolong

I dont wanna miss a thing is completely turned on its head. As the lyrics clearly demonstrate is the protagonist who cant go to sleep being chased by their memories, specifically the memories of their mother “I don't miss you, babe, and I do want to miss a thing”. As the person is tossing and turning on their bed, unable to sleep they talk about how they dont miss their mother at all and they want to “miss” her as in they want to forget her.

Sleepin’

The character is constantly speaking about how they are “sleeping with their clothes on” this is due to them falling asleep during their everyday life because of their lack of sleep every night, this person is barely functional, their sleep schedule is broken. Also since this song is about the character actually sleeping it also works as a bridge back into their dreams and so into their past.

Aammoorree

Is another vignette about the character sinking into disreputable states in order to escape their shitty situation as a teenager, this time very specifically about being completely drunk and perhaps experiencing romance for the first time. The character is probably at a club or a party, drunkenly hitting on someone, though chances are without much success as the song becomes increasingly more incoherent and we go into a full black out. This gets bad enough that the person finally has to take a look and….

Where is my mom

….stop. It is highly suggestive that in the album the “stop” is part of this song rather than the last one. The person is not only stopping their current alcoholic binge. They are stopping the entire situation and taking a good look at their life, finally confronting face to face what is happening and why it is so wrong. Now “stacy’s mom” was always kind of an inappropriate song due to it being about a child having a crush on their friend’s mom, as sung by an adult. But as it is recontextualized by the instruments of “where is my mind” it takes on a much darker tone. The romantic words are still there but now with a sinister bent. This time the main character asks their friend if they can go and take refuge at their house and when they ask if the mom is going to be there they sound more scared than eager, specially suggested by the way he seems to be stammering the word “pool”, they are nervous and terrified. They also talk about stacy’s mom as “all they want and been waiting for so long”, probably because all they want is a normal, loving mother. Presumably this song is about the main character finally talking about what is going on at his house with a friend, confessing and that confession gives way to realization

Fredhammer

Then realization gives way to anger. During this whole song we see the teenage character finally grasping how fucked up the whole situation is and he gets progressively more worked up with each successive aggravation “Why did it take so long? Why (hoo!), did I wait so long, huh?

Why??? To figure it out, but I did it (huh?)”. From this we transition to the kid actually confronting their mom face to face. The line “So you can take that cookie And stick it up your (yeah!)” can be read as the mother trying to pretend there is nothing wrong or pacifying the kid with empty gestures of motherhood, by making cookies and the kid spitting that back into their face. The kid gets more and more worked up through the song as we seamlessly transition to the next one.

Limp Wicket

This song is pure incoherent chaos but something very important can be rescued out of the chaos. This song uses the lyrics from the “ewok celebration” which is presumably the song the ewoks sing in return of the jedi after the empire was defeated. So in a way is the kid celebrating that he finally confronted their mother and presumably defeated her. This is emphazised by the recurrence of the lyrics ““So you can take that cookie”. Is not specified how the mother is defeated, maybe social services or the police get involved, maybe the kid runs away, either way this song is triumphant. The evil entity that stole his childhood and innocence has been defeated.

Cannibals

This song is slightly different from the rest. It works as a form of victory lap after the defeat of the mother figure, but also as an intermission since it lies smack dab in the middle of the album, and finally as a transitionary song from childhood to adulthood. Is a time skip, we get to see the person grow up in fast forward as the THX song hits its crescendo. This song also makes it perfectly clear that, even though she was left behind, the mental scars that the mother left are still there and still fresh and still very much stopping them from sleeping “She drives me crazy

And I can't help myself”. 

The outsiders

This works as a way to recontextualize us in the life of the character as an adult. Our so called “feature presentation”. It is not altogether clear who these people being introduced are. They could be the people who came to mean something in this persons life as they grew up after trauma, probably multiple foster homes, social workers, friends, bosses, co workers, etc. the fact that they are being enumerated dissapasionatly could indicate how most of his social relationships were basically a meaningless blur for him who grew up socially distant due to trauma. It could also represent the multiple roles that our character was forced to take as they grew up and the multiple things that went through his mind or meant something. There is clearly some desperate attempts to recapture their lost childhood as figures such as “inspector gadget” or “the ninja turtles part three” are named. The song is a fast montage of views and places. That prepares us for the next song.

Johnny

We finally zoom in and take a good look at our main character as an adult. A sad, pathetic figure, hurt and lonely, possibly not very well liked and certainly not respected as we hear boos all around. Despite all this the character is clearly committing themselves to be a good person, to not hurt others like he was hurt and specifically to not commit the same crimes that their mother commited.

Closerflies & Nightmovin

These two songs might as well work as a single piece since they are both more or less about the same thing. We reiterate how this person has been turned into an insomniac due to the trauma that they experienced as a child “When I'm far too tired to fall asleep”. They are delirious and barely coherent, possibly hallucinating as they think about their life in bed. This is clearly hell on earth and it seems like its just never going to stop “Can't wake up in a sweat

'Cause it ain't over yet” but, with neil’s classic sense of humor, the song immediately ends.

Now that could just be for the sake of irony but there is also another level in which it could be read. This suffering stops because something suddenly changes in this person’s life. What could that be?

Whitehouse

“I fell in love with a girl”

As the lyrics say, the main character met someone special and they are deeply in love. But also, because of the past that weighs heavily on him, he is very trepidatious about wether to go on with the relationship or not. He knows he is damaged goods and he doesnt want to drag her down as well, these fears make it so he never fully opens up to her about his issues “She turns and says, "Are you alright?" I said, "I must be fine because my heart's still beating." 

Wah

The use of “war” by edwin starr is a clever reference about how everything is fair in love and war. Now this song is an important departure since it is sung from the point of view of the girl our main character fell in love with. She is a feisty woman who is very clearly trying to establish the terms of the relationship and demanding her partner to open up which the main character, due to his insecurities, takes as a declaration of war and which he deflects by playing dumb, hence the repeated use of the silly “WAH” by wario. 

Pee Wee Inc

The emotional distance from the man is putting a strain in the relationship, so what once was supposed to “feel good” is now this melancholic and unbearable situation. Is no mistake that the song sampled here is “the breakfast machine” from pee wee’s big adventure. After all  a neglected partner can feel like a breakfast machine, an object that is there just to make your breakfast. On top of this you can see that the insomnia hasnt gone away “My dreams, they got a kissing 'cause I don't get to sleep, no”. In a lot of ways the girlfriend is feeling used as just a relief from the man’s suffering but not as someone who is being truly loved.

1000 spoons

We go back to the woman’s perspective. At first it just seems like a simple melancholic situation where she is sad the relationship is not working, but then we see the woman have a full mental breakdown as the song changes and becomes much more deranged and we get to see what is really happening. The man ran away on their wedding day. This is represented by the lyrics “is like rain on your wedding day” because it means the wedding has been ruined. She is heartbroken by this.

Mouth dreams (extro)

Appropriately as the previous song talked about a wedding being ruined by “rain” this song begins with the sound of rain. This is the big emotional climax of the story, the music at its most dramatic. Now i will admit, even for me this is a stretch, im willing to concede most of what i am about to say is essentially built out of whole cloth and me wanting to fit a neat full narrative into this album where there is none, but hey, what is art for?

Essentially the man is about to commit suicide, possibly by jumping off a bridge in the rain as suggested by the song being sampled “drowning”. The fact that this song is named after the album is a way to signify how everything that we have just seen weighs heavily on the man’s heart, his whole life, his memories, his trauma, and he is finally ready to end it all. He jumps.

But at the last second his wife jumps after him and drags him to the shore, the last we see is her trying to perform mouth to mouth resuscitation, as indicated by the song,”love me mouth to mouth now…” he is unconscious and presumably finally sleeping peacefully (maybe dead?) “...cover me with dreams, yeah”.

It might look like he will not survive, as implied by the sinister version of all star encroaching over the song. But as it looks like all hope is lost he finally WAKES UP.

In a way this song is also when we finally catch up with the start of the album where we saw the man desperately hollering for human contact and merely echos responding, except now someone finally answered, and he is finally ready to open up and share his story.

Brithoven

Even though this song is sung by a single person i choose to take it as a dialog between the couple, both of them sharing their regrets about their relationship with each other, her recriminating the fact that she couldnt have known what he was going through “oh baby bay, how was i supposed to know, that something wasnt right here” and him finally admitting that he needs help “My loneliness is killing me”.

Finally they both agree to try it again and give their relationship a second chance “hit me baby one more time”

Ain’t

Part of me is conflicted about this song, i kind of want to disregard it, mainly because i think its kind of a weird way to end an album and also because i just dont feel is a very good mashup really. The lyrics dont mix that well with the song, they are paced in an inconsistent way and overall feel like they never truly click. On top of that it just doesnt fit at all with the narrative that i have been building during this analysis.

There is talk about alcoholism and parent abandoment, this time by the father, a figure that was never mentioned during the album. The last line says “say it aint so” which doesnt particularly seem to reflect on any of the themes i’ve been building upon. Ultimately i think i will just leave it besides and be content that i managed to fit almost all of the album into one story, this process was never meant to be a perfect dissection of the carefully planned story that neil deliberately crafted but rather me having fun seeing pictures in a rorshach test.

So anyway that was Mouth dreams, let me know what you thought.

[secondwintersoldier]

tw: parental death, manipulation, heavy on the abuse/dv, murder, lots of BAD THINGS!!! IC PORTION; BASICS —

CHARACTER NAME/ALIAS: Richard James “RJ” Boyle / Winter Solider (II)

FACECLAIM: Noah Centineo

AFFILIATIONS: HYDRA, The Task Force

AGE (physical age as well, if different): 21. He was injected with the super soldier serum shortly after his 21st birthday, and so RJ will remain physically 21 until his death.

SPECIES (human, metahuman, alien, etc): Complicated. RJ started out entirely human, though he has been permanently altered by the serum, making him a meta human.

IS YOUR CHARACTER’S IDENTITY SECRET OR PUBLIC? Secret, for the time being.

IF SECRET, OR YOUR CHARACTER IS A CIVILIAN, DO THEY HAVE A CIVILIAN OCCUPATION?: He’s fully controlled by the ISA

DOES YOUR CHARACTER LIVE IN THE MOUSEHOLE? IF SO, WHAT ARE THEIR DUTIES? No

DESCRIBE SIX TRAITS (3 positive, 3 negative) YOUR CHARACTER HAS AND HOW THESE AFFECT THEM:

+ CHARISMATIC: RJ hasn’t lost his charisma, even with all of the brainwashing, conditioning and abuse. Prior to HYDRA, RJ was a goofy kid and some of that still remains. He’s an assassin that will talk your ear off while actively trying to kill you, boyish smile and all. RJ is, overall, horribly under socialized and takes every and any opportunity he can get to chat and be social.

+ QUICK-THINKING: RJ is always one step ahead, always ready, always waiting. He’s quick on his feet and isn’t easily frustrated or swayed when shit inevitably hits the fan and things veer off plan. He usually has back-up plans to his back-up plans, but he’s excellent at thinking on the fly as well. He’s resourceful and has been trained to use whatever is available to him, and has a good eye for these types of things.

+ PATIENT: RJ will lay in wait for however long is needed of him. He spent years in a HYDRA facility staring at a wall to pass the time, and so it is safe to say that he could literally wait to watch paint dry. This certainly aids him when it comes to missions and field work. RJ’s able to put in the leg work, do the recon required for his missions without jumping in too soon. He’s trained to wait for the perfect, most opportune moment, and he’s quite good at it.

- OBSESSIVE: RJ has tunnel vision when it comes to...most everything. He fixates and he is unable to see the bigger picture. When RJ is on task, it’s hard for him to think of anything else other than the steps that will get him to the end result. He isn’t easily side-tracked, which could be considered beneficial, but RJ’s tunnel-visioned to the point of absolute obsession. He won’t sleep, won’t eat, won’t do anything else until the task has been completed.

- UNSTABLE: After everything he has been through, ‘unstable’ is an absolute understatement. RJ is unpredictable, prone to violent tendencies, and his moods come and go like the wind. He’s impossible to predict and has little to no handle on his emotions and the actions that follow.

- DESPERATE: RJ, above all else, wants to belong. He will do whatever it takes to please the hand that feeds him in hopes that he might receive praise or love in return. He’s never been worthy, according to Mr. Colt, and RJ has run out of ideas of how to please his handler and superiors. He’s done everything they asked, and will continue to do so. They say jump, and he asks how high.

POWERS AND/OR ABILITIES: RJ is a master assassin. With this comes the general expertise in a vast assortment of weaponry and hand-to-hand combat. His training has been very thorough, and it is safe to say RJ excels at every challenge thrown his way. RJ is a master tactician and strategist, and speaks a wide assortment of languages. Due to being injected with the super soldier formula, RJ was gifted enhanced strength/durability/speed/agility/reflexes/healing and also (in theory) an extended lifespan.

WEAKNESSES: RJ is a puppet, and his handler holds the strings. For the most part, RJ has not required “activation”” as he goes on his missions quite willingly, though the threat is there if needed. His identity has been stripped from him, and all that he’s known for years is the Winter Solider. He does not remember a time before HYDRA with only fleeting memories passing as dreams from his childhood. RJ is unstable and is prone to episodes of becoming unhinged where he exhibits extreme violence and lack of restraint. There’s a sense of desperation to him, an instinctual need to be loved by the hand that feeds him, though to be honest the best RJ has gotten is kicked while being fed from the floor. In a sense, he’s very naive for the fact that his social skills are greatly lacking and he’s desperate for any sort of affection or love that he’ll take what he can get.

IC PORTION; DETAILS —

WHAT BROUGHT YOUR CHARACTER TO SOKOVIA? The ISA. RJ doesn’t quite know where he was before Sokovia - he was kept indoors mostly, and the windows of every car he was transported in were dark.

DID THEY SIGN THE ACCORDS? WHY OR WHY NOT? No, simply for the fact that he wasn’t asked. He’d do anything asked of him by his handler, so this is a possibility in the future.

PROVIDE 3-5 HEADCANONS RELATED TO YOUR CHARACTER:

RJ loved any and all media he was able to get his hands on during his time in HYDRA, the majority of which were old and classic movies. He watched the variety he was able to keep in his room to the point of memorization, and old/black-and-white movies are his comfort.

That being said, a big bulk of how RJ learned how to socialize at all comes from these movies. His only interaction for over a decade was with HYDRA agents and Colt, and so most of his knowledge of how socialization works was gathered from the same ten movies he watched on repeat.

RJ has a sweet tooth that he has little to no control over. This could be due to the fact that he was vastly food insecure for the entirety of his adolescence, but RJ will eat an entire pan of brownies all to himself in just a matter of minutes.

Sleep is evasive to RJ and has been since his training began, though it has gotten much worse since he was injected with the super soldier serum. He survives on just a few hours a night, and that’s enough to keep him functioning.

RJ keeps a journal, and it details his training from the time he began at HYDRA up until the present. It’s elaborate, spares no details, and is helpful for him to try to keep his head on straight.

RJ’s activation sequence has never been used, though he has been conditioned with one. It is: crimson, wistful, thirteen, current, snarl, eclipse, seven, anguish, twenty-one, voyage.

CHARACTER BIO —

tw: parental death, manipulation, heavy on the abuse/dv, murder

In truth, RJ remembered nothing before HYDRA. He did  not even know what “RJ” stands for. That was likely their intention, and they were successful. His file, inaccessible to him and under highly restricted access, would detail the following:

Richard James Boyle was born on Christmas Eve in the year 1999 in Woodbridge, New Jersey. His father was a conman, an outright criminal in his own right but he was good at what he did. His mother was sickly and his father couldn’t make ends meet, and so Richard Sr. turned to bigger crime in an attempt to keep his family afloat. Six bank heists in two years, and then he was caught and sent to prison when RJ was still a baby. His mother made do, they survived best they could until they couldn’t anymore. She passed away when RJ was five, and his memories of her even before HYDRA were fleeting. He dreamed of her sometimes, even still, but he could never remember her face.

Foster homes were the name of the game for the rest of his childhood.. Nothing was consistent, it felt as though as soon as he got settled he was packing up his belongings in a big black trash bag and being shipped off to the next one. This happened for several years, until his tenth year. The final family he was with sold RJ over to HYDRA for the cash, and with that RJ Boyle ceased to exist in the world he was used to and his training began.

He was handed over to Colt, who was RJ’s handler and responsible for both raising and training RJ. He was raised in a HYDRA facility, in a room that could be described as something one would see in a prison or a hospital, with Mr. Colt coming and going. The brainwashing began almost immediately, as Colt and his superiors wanted to ensure that their new asset was fully under their thumb.

RJ was the newest addition to the Winter Soldier program, an initiative that had  been long since abandoned. The history that followed was painful at best, and absolutely formative. Mr. Colt could be described as cruel, manipulative and abusive. RJ was not fed consistently, often beaten and tormented, and was taught that love and affection would be something that he would have to earn. RJ was told he showed potential, was gifted with talent and it was his duty to use that talent and potential. RJ was told that any worthwhile person would not waste their potential, would grab it by the horns and take it, and only then would he have value. His early trainings and missions were sloppy, and RJ was punished severely for this. He didn’t like killing, wasn’t particularly good at it, but that would change soon. He found it was easier not to think about it, treat it like any other job, and that was when things began to turn around.

His education was limited, certainly not formal, and only included what HYDRA and Mr. Colt thought would benefit their long term goals. So much of his training revolved around the Winter Soldier, whom RJ was taken in to emulate. RJ spent hours on end studying all the footage there was on Bucky Barnes, the original Winter Soldier, and reading every single file HYDRA had on the man. Over time, he could dictate the files from memory alone and could replicate the Winter Soldier's fighting style. Better yet, he knew his weaknesses, and his real mission became clear: to defeat the Winter Soldier. On top of this, RJ was shown the files of every other vigilante that HYDRA had at their disposal: he studied and studied and studied, and then practiced what he had learned.

He was seventeen when HYDRA began to fall, and RJ was shuffled around more often than not, moving from base to base as the organization struggled to stay hidden and alive. RJ’s training would continue, and he began to exceed expectations. He won every spar, he could assemble and disassemble every weapon handed to him with his eyes closed before using the weapon in question in record time. He was damn near undefeatable in the field, and finally he felt worthy. Mr. Colt disagreed.

On Christmas Day in 2020, RJ was given the super soldier serum after eleven years of training. He had been preparing for this for years, had studied and worked harder than he thought he ever could, and he finally proved worthy to the program. RJ was better than before - faster, stronger, more resilient, enhanced in every way. He was put through a myriad of tests, several field missions, to put his skills to the test and RJ aced every single one of them. One better, he did not require the hypnosis in place to force his hand and went on his missions willingly.He was no longer sloppy - he was clean, precise and deadly.

He was shipped off to Sokovia in February of 2021 with instructions that he would be working for the ISA’s Task Force. He was an agent, and would be at their disposal. Mr. Colt would not be coming with him, something that RJ was unsure of how to feel about as he had been the hand to feed him all these years. He would have a new handler, an unknown, and RJ didn’t like those. After all, it was his job to be prepared and stay one step ahead.

But it was nice to have a little more freedom. RJ Boyle was instructed to immerse himself in Matchak, to gain intel, to get comfortable with the lay of the land. The Winter Soldier would be needed soon, and it was RJ’s job to be sure he was ready.

WRITING SAMPLE —

EXTRAS —

Myers Briggs: ENTJ Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff Zodiac: Capricorn Sin: Envy

[radioactive-mouse]

MY PERSONAL TAKES ON YOGS TMA ALIGNMENTS BECAUSE THEYRE MY HYPERFIXATIONS AND I SAY SO

Xephos: Eye Aligned / Vast Fear Meal

ok this one’s funky because like, as much as I love him pretty much all of xeph’s worst instincts can be traced back to beholding. he constantly needs to know and understand in order to feel in control, even when that knowledge comes at the cost of his own or someone else’s well-being. he doesn’t know when to stop asking questions, doesn’t know how to walk away, and even in his better moments he gets very fussy and needs to know what’s going on with everyone around him or he might combust. he’d also be a real scrumptious meal for the vast because not only did he, yknow, crash from space which he for sure has trauma from and then proceed to fail three fucking moon landings, he also just hates the concept of his own insignificance, hates the idea that he can’t control some things, and he gets so pressed about it that he does evil fucked up science to cope.

Honeydew: Buried Aligned / ???? Fear Meal

this is really self explanatory to be honest. diggy diggy hole he is digging a hole, also the closest i could think of for what entity would want to eat him is the eye but that doesn’t feel terribly accurate? honeydew is literally just vibing too much for cosmic horrors to get their hands on him

Lalna: Eye Aligned / Stranger Fear Meal

yeah, this one is. yeah. obvious enough. this is just a general rule for most lalnas with a few exceptions. lalna is really interested in obtaining knowledge but not so much using it to actually help anyone around him at least until Nano shows up and makes him stop being a bit of a prick and he like, for sure has some desolation tendencies in there somewhere. stranger-wise the clones kind of speak for themselves, lalna hates the idea that someone else could swap in and replace him at any moment, and really hates the amount of people running around with his face. also quick shout out to lalnable and eternal lalna’s flesh and slaughter alignments on top of all this. 

Rythian: Lonely Aligned / Slaughter Fear Meal

rythian’s real fuckin depressed. like, he for sure has some of his own desolation tendencies as well, but ultimately that stems from the fact that when he doesn’t have other people to keep him grounded he starts flailing for stability and even further back he spent his entire childhood unable to connect with anyone, find anyone that looked like him and that’s Why He Is The Way That He Is. i don’t doubt that both the slaughter and the desolation would get a pretty good snack out of him, because he has tendencies towards both but ultimately he’s scared that the people he cares about are going to get hurt and he wants to keep them safe. 

Zoey: Corruption Aligned / Slaughter Fear Meal

mushrooms! zoey needs to be surrounded by life and other people who care about her to be able to function. she’s also touched a little bit by the web like, in the way that martin seems to be? she doesn’t like it but she did play the red and brown mushrooms off each other, she’s not going to use it to hurt people but zoey is somehow the best and worst liar on the planet. she’s a slaughter/desolation fear meal in the same sense as rythian but like, 100 times more, she’s very set on being nonviolent and just wants to vibe with the people she loves without anyone messing with them. 

Sjin: Web Aligned / Hunt Fear Meal

sjin is a manipulative little bastard sometimes! everyone (including me) seems to forget about that one arc of jaffa factory where sjin’s like,,,, been puppeting a talking head?? to tell sips what to do???? which was fuckin weird but anyway thats most of my reasoning here tbh. in the same vein as that sjin absolutely hates any kind of comeuppance for his actions and is the most avoidant dude on the planet, anyone coming after him specifically scares the shit out of him.

Sips: Buried Aligned / ???? Fear Meal

ok i promise i have more reasoning other than Dirt Man but its via like,, a weirdly specific sips backstory that im not getting into and i cant think of anything that would particularly want to eat him im sorry king i did you dirty

Nano: Corruption Aligned / ???? Fear Meal

nano is TEXTBOOK corruption. she wants love! so bad! she’s literally being corrupted because mother offers her the first familial relationship she’s ever had in her life! she wants to be fully consumed by what loves her!!! i can’t think of any entity specifically that would want to eat her 

Parvis: Slaughter Aligned / Lonely Fear Meal

again parvis is TEXTBOOK slaughter. he doesn’t care where he directs it, but he needs violence to make himself feel powerful, he needs to be in control of something and the best way to do that is to prove you can choose when someone lives or dies. but more than parvis needs to be in control he needs to be feared, he needs someone to see him, and the lonely’s brand of fading into obscurity would fuck him up big time.

Strife: UHHHHHHHHH Aligned / End Fear Meal

okay the thing is. if we’re talking an actual tma AU? i’m of the opinion that strife stays stubbornly unaligned gerry-style no matter how many entities make grabby hands at him. but listen, strife rolls up and the extinction, the desolation, the lonely and the eye all get into a knife fight over who gets custody of this bitch ass business boy. but strife would absolutely fear the end, the one thing no amount of money or power is going to let him outrun is death, dude’s got some real issues with mortality and it shows. 

[casualmaraudering]

digging my own grave and publishing a multichaptered fic when i have only one chapter written oh boy

i feel i might regret this sometime in the near future but i’m very excited for this still!! here’s the first chapter of what started of as that coffee shop au

**

Sirius is running on two hours of sleep within the last 48 hours, seven cups of coffee - or was it eight? - and too much Panic! At The Disco when he meets the love of his life.

Now, mind you, he’s only 19, and he doesn’t even know the guy, but he already knows they’re bound to fall in love, get married, buy a house with a picket fence and have three children. And a dog. A big dog.

Anyway. The point is - love of his life. Right there in this small, suburban cafe.

“Reggie, I’m in love,” he says instantly, not taking his eyes off of this angel of a man. He’s got the smile of an angel, anyway. And hair, too - angels have curls, that’s just scientific.

“The fuck are you on about?” his brother replies, with too much snarky confidence for a 14 year old. He’s been spending too much time with Lily, Sirius reckons. Bad influence and whatnot, that girl.

“That guy in the corner,” Sirius still hasn’t taken his eyes off him, by the way. “The curly haired one, with the laptop. And don’t swear.”

“Who’s he? Like a boyfriend or something? I’m leaving if you dragged me here just to make out with your stupid boyfriend, you were supposed to help me study!”

“What? No, he’s not my boyfriend, I’ve literally never seen him before.”

Regulus blinks. “And yet you say you’re in love?”

“Yes, I’m quite positive I am. Don’t you think our kids would look beautiful?”

“You’re insane.”

“You think they’ll have curls? I hope they will. Or the freckles.”

Regulus sighs and runs his hand through his hair - now that’s a habit he’s picked from James. Sirius really needs to find more respectable friends to hang with when he’s minding his little brother. Not like Regulus really needs minding to anymore, but still, Sirius is responsible for him, so he guesses he should find some positive influences.

Love Of His Life seems like a good sort, which is fantastic. Sirius can bet he studies something smart like literature. Or maybe physics.

“Listen,” Reg says, punching him in the arm. “You’re a fucking mess but-”

“Don’t swear,” Sirius says, absentmindedly - he’s really wondering what Love Of His Life’s taste in music is. He seems like an Ed Sheeran type, and Sirius definitely doesn’t mind that. He could learn some Ed Sheeran songs on his guitar - that’s quite romantic, isn’t it?

“- go ask him out or whatever. I’ll get us something, and then you’re helping me.”

With that, and an eye roll - honestly, way too much time with Lily - he leaves Sirius to his own.

Usually, Sirius wouldn’t just saunter towards a guy that fucking cute, oh no, he’d need some sort of back up or pep talk, from James, preferably. But today, he’s a mess, and lack of sleep makes him incredibly reckless and equally detached from reality, so indeed, he walks towards the table.

Love Of His Life looks up at him when he sits down on the other side, confusion spread on his face.

“Hi,” Sirius says, smiling. He hopes he doesn’t look as messy as he feels - his hair might be a bit wild, but he’s been told that looks hot, so he figures it’s fine.

“Hi?” Love Of His Life replies.

“So I noticed you sitting here, and I thought I’d say hi. Which I already did. But still. Hello.”

He raises a brow at Sirius. So Sirius, as he tends to do when both sleep deprived and thoroughly caffeinated, just keeps on talking.

“I’m here with my brother - helping him with homework, like a responsible older sibling and all that jazz. What are you working on? I bet it’s something smart - you look smart, at least. It’s the jumper, y’know? You wouldn’t mind if we sat with you, maybe? I just thought - you’re sitting alone, I wouldn’t mind the company, for sure, and you seem smart and nice so who knows, maybe Regulus will learn something - I’m the one that’s supposed to be teaching him but I know fuckall about history, honestly - I’m doing art, actually. Are you a history guy? You seem like a history guy?”

“I’m so sorry for him,” Regulus says, sitting down next to Sirius - and kicking him, definitely on purpose. He sets down a cup of coffee for Sirius, and a hot chocolate for himself.

“Is he high?” Love Of His Life asks. Sirius giggles to himself.

“He’s sleep deprived and had too much coffee. And also he’s gay.”

Love Of His Life blinks at that. “And that’s relevant how…?”

“Well, he gets like that around guys he likes. Idiotic, I mean.”

“Oh,” Love Of His Life seems startled, but Sirius can see a blush on his face, and he’s suddenly not mad at Regulus being here anymore.

“Are you single?” Sirius asks, because again - too much caffeine. Whatever filter he has is long gone.

“I really am sorry, he’s a fucking twat when he doesn’t sleep.”

“Swearing, Reggie.”

“You swear all the time!”

“I’m the big brother, I can.”

“And yet I have to do this shit for you,” Regulus says with a huff. “Listen. He likes you, and I promise, he’s actually surprisingly tolerable when he’s had enough sleep and no one lets him touch caffeine. So if you’d humour him and give him your number, or whatever, we’d get out of your hair now.”

Love Of His Life blinks in confusion again. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Sirius cocks his head in what he hopes the guy considers cute. “Don’t be like that. If you’re not gay, I get it. But if you are - even a little bit, what’s there to dislike about me, huh? I’m obviously the best looking guy you’ll ever find.”

“And bloody humble too,” Regulus mumbles to himself - Sirius kicks him.

Love Of His Life - Sirius should find a shorter nickname, or ask for his name - laughs at that.

“I don’t really care much for appearance.”

“Oh, everybody says that but deep down I’m sure you wouldn’t hate dating someone with a face like mine.”

“I’m blind.”

Oh.

“Shit,” Regulus says - Sirius kicks him again, more out of habit than anything - “sorry, I-”

“I get it, hard to notice. I don’t mind,” he smiles that cute, soft smile again - Sirius remembers why he fell in love all that 15 minutes ago. “Are you still so set on dating me?”

“Yes,” Sirius says without a further thought. “I don’t care. I’m in love with you.”

Angel - shorter, but still not ideal - laughs again. “Leave that for when we know each other a bit more and maybe you’ve had more sleep.”

“Get used to this,” Regulus sighs. “Clinical insomnia, and all. Happens rather often.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says softly. “So, Regulus, you said?”

“And my idiot brother is Sirius.”

“Parents were really into stars, huh?”

“You could say that,” Regulus mumbles half-heartedly.

Their family is still something they rarely talk about. Ever since they left home - the moment Sirius turned 18, he packed their most important belongings and dragged Regulus out of that hellhole - it was something they just didn’t speak of. It’s a bit less touchy, now, but they mutually agree it’s best left alone, to discuss at a later date, maybe when Reggie is a bit older.

“Mine were into mythology. It’s Remus.”

Sirius smiles brightly, and Regulus groans.

“Stop being so gay,” Reg hisses.

Remus laughs. “You said you’re learning history, right?”

“Yup. French revolution at the moment.”

“Just so happens I’m majoring in history. How about Sirius gets me a hot chocolate, and I’ll help you out?”

Sirius blinks. So does Regulus.

“Will you go on a date with me, then?”

Remus shuts his laptop and scoots a bit closer to them.

“Let’s start with my number first. Ask me again when you’re functioning like a normal human.”

*

The time in the cafe flies by like nothing.

Remus has a lovely voice, Sirius comes to realize. Even when he’s talking through decapitating French monarchy, he makes it sound soothing in a way. Sirius almost thinks he could fall asleep while listening to it, and that’s a gigantic compliment.

He’s also unlike any teacher Sirius has ever had. He’s patient in explaining everything to Regulus - he pauses to let the kid take notes (either when Reggie tells him to, or Remus himself can hear the pen scribbling away on a notepad), goes into further detail or repeats things when he’s asked, hell, even the gentle expression on his face is unlike Sirius’s memory of school. It was always harsh, private tutors, and he either got things right or got smacked with a wooden ruler.

Probably shouldn’t point that out, though. The depths of his childhood drama aren’t exactly something he wants to share just yet.

Mostly cause he really wants Remus not to run away. Skipping the fact he’s incredibly gorgeous and Sirius is positive he’s in love (Remus is going through the exact timeline of the revolution, date by date, when Sirius names all their future children in his head), he seems like a cool guy all around, and someone that can actually properly help Reggie out in school - Remus has done a better job during the last two hours than Sirius has for the entire year.

And, Remus is still here, even after the first hand experience of Sirius, caffeinated and sleep deprived. Not many people can handle that - which means maybe, just maybe, the whole insomnia thing won’t turn into a big deal. Sirius does acknowledge it, but he doesn’t like to think of it as much - he can’t fall asleep like a normal person sometimes (‘sometimes’ being usually four days a week), so what about that? James and Lily make it seem like it’s going to kill him, but it’s not like it’s a drug addiction or anything. He’s just a little manic sometimes, and depressed other times. And then unable to concentrate and constantly exhausted most of the time.

Point is, he can deal with it, therefore it’s not a big deal. So Remus shouldn’t be coaxed into thinking that it’s a big deal, because Sirius likes him the way he is now - not making a big deal out of Sirius being, well… Sirius.

“Hey, asshole!”

Then there’s the fact that lack of sleep makes him a bit detached from reality, so he hadn’t realized Regulus was trying to get his attention until just now, when he jabbed him with his elbow. That’s just something Remus has to get used to.

“What? Are you guys done?” he says, blinking to try and get some sense of his surroundings.

Regulus sighs in a way so dramatic it can only be achieved by a 14 year old boy.

“You’re crashing,” he says. “Which means we should leave.”

Sirius makes an offended sound. It’s as if Regulus thinks he’s the older one!

“I’m not,” Sirius says. “I’m just… thinking. About things. Important things, I’ll have you know.”

“You’re spacing out, is what you are. Which means you’re finally gonna go to bed, I fucking hope.”

“Don’t swear. And I just had coffee!”

“I got you decaf.”

Sirius blinks. “And why would you do that?!” Sirius says, offended, because honestly, there’s no greater offence than decaf coffee. The caffeine is the whole bloody point!

Sirius’s brain functions are lowered due to lack of sleep, so he doesn’t even register that somehow he didn’t notice it was decaf while drinking (if he did realize that, he would be greatly offended with himself - 4 years of being addicted to caffeine and what did that give him? Not being able to taste decaf?).

“Maybe,” this time Remus speaks, seemingly highly amused by the ongoing conversation. “he’s, uh, concerned about your sleeping habits and wants you to go to bed?”

“I’m an adult, I go to bed when I want to!”

“The last time you slept was when James drove us to Ikea, and that was yesterday evening. For like 30 minutes.”

“How do you know I didn’t sleep at night, huh?”

“I could bloody hear you pacing around in the kitchen, and you were there when I woke up too. We’re going home before you fucking pass out.”

“Don’t swear. And I’m fine, honestly.”

He yawns, then, so his body doesn’t seem to think so. Regulus rolls his eyes, and Remus giggles.

“I think it’s best you go.” Remus then pulls his phone out and hands it to Sirius. “Put your number in, so I can make sure you did as you’re told and slept for at least a few hours.”

Sirius beams at that, grabbing the phone with probably too much enthusiasm. He makes sure he’s put his number in correctly three times (and sends himself a text just in case) before he carefully places it back in Remus’s hand. With that, their hands touch, and Sirius feels a shiver go up his spine - Remus’s hands are smooth and so warm.

Sirius definitely wouldn’t mind them in his own hands. Or on his body. Or around his-

Okay, yeah, definitely time to go home before he gets too carried away in any fantasies, next to his little brother as well.

“Oh, uh,” Sirius finds himself saying when he gets up. “D’you… need help getting home? Or something?”

Remus smiles at him. “I came here by myself, you do realize that?”

Sirius feels his face flush. “Yeah, I mean! I don’t want to sound rude or stupid but I thought I’d just ask, I dunno, I’ve never known a blind person before so I kinda have no idea what’s the socially acceptable thing to say but it seemed rude to just leave you. Even though I know you’re an adult that can mind himself and I’m sure you’re capable of traveling by yourself I didn’t want to imply you don’t-”

“Stop. Talking,” Regulus hisses, pulling Sirius out of the booth. “You’re being an idiot again.”

“Ah, no, I don’t mind, honestly. Takes time getting used to it, I know. I’ll be fine, though, I promise.”

“Next time,” Sirius says. “I’ll get you a ride home on my bike.”

“Bike? Like a motorbike?”

Sirius beams proudly. “Yup! She’s my baby - built her myself.”

Remus’s brow furrow. “Please don’t tell me you drove here with your younger brother while you’ve slept for a total of half hour since yesterday.”

“Oh, please, who do you think I am?” Regulus asks. “I’d never let him drive the bloody thing when he’s like that. We walked, we don’t live far.”

“Good. Let me know when you get home, then,” Remus smiles the gentle smile again, and despite the caffeine crash and his body screaming at him from fatigue, Sirius feels he could run laps around the building right now cause of the happy, bubbly feeling in his stomach.

“You too. I’ll see you around, Remus.”

Sirius and Regulus walk home in silence - mainly because, as much as he hates to admit Regulus was right - Sirius really is crashing. The manic energy he usually has whenever he surpases 30 hours of no sleep is through and gone, so now he’s nothing left but the overpowering fatigue.

His whole body feels heavy; Sirius is glad Regulus is there, supporting him while he walks, cause he finds it hard to concentrate on going straight - his eyelids are closing by themselves, and there’s a dull ache starting to build in his head and nausea creeping in.

At least he knows he’ll sleep. Not for much, but maybe he’ll get a few hours, at least.

He doesn’t register them walking up the stairs, or Reggie opening the door to their apartment - it’s small and cramped, with two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a lounge-slash-kitchen; the sink breaks way too often, the walls are paper-thin, and the shower is not meant for Sirius’s height so he bumps his head into the showerhead every night without fail. It doesn’t compare to Grimmauld in the slightest, but it’s theirs, away from their parents, so neither of them ever really complain.

Sirius wiggles out of his shoes - he curses the fact his motorbike boots are almost knee high and have seven or so straps; they’re a pain to take off, but damn him if they don’t look good. He then throws his jacket onto the couch, and heads towards his bedroom.

“Will you be okay for dinner?” he finds himself asking - he’s not sure if he’ll be awake til later at night, and the fridge is probably empty (he notes in his head that he needs to go grocery shopping first thing tomorrow before work). He might be dead on his feet, but he’d hate himself if he didn’t make sure his brother is okay.

“Yeah, I’ll call Lily and ask her if she’ll pick something up for us,” Regulus says, waving Sirius off. “Just- go to bed, kay?”

Sirius feels a strange sting at that - Regulus shouldn’t have to rely on Lily. Sirius should be the one sorting out the food, and his homework, and making sure all is right with his brother. But his stupid fucking sleep deprivation makes it so he can’t, so James and Lily have to check in with Reggie, and then Regulus has to worry for Sirius, when he shouldn’t have to.

Sirius is the older brother, the one that should do the worrying. The one that should be responsible. How is he better than their bloody parents if he can’t even take care of Reggie?

“Mhm,” he settles for, because he feels his throat squeeze uncomfortably, in a way too familiar manner.

Sirius takes one last look at his brother - who’s unpacking his schoolbooks onto the kitchen table (his favourite place to study, cause he’s in close proximity to the kettle) and with that, he sleepily stumbles towards his own bedroom.

He only bothers to take off his jeans and socks, and then he crawls under the duvet and collapses onto the bed.

Sirius somehow remembers to text Remus - it lifts his mood a little, to remember that, despite the probably uncomfortable amounts of pestering, Remus still wanted Sirius to text him; there’s hopes for an actual friendship there, Sirius thinks. Remus doesn’t reply immediately, so Sirius plugs in his phone to charge and leaves it on the nightstand - he’s too tired to wait up for a text back.

He’s exhausted enough to know he will sleep, so thank God for that. And maybe, if he’s lucky, he’ll dream of something nice.

Or, if he’s extra lucky, someone nice.

[shioritsumi]

hey you know what video game I can’t stop thinking about?

Remember Me

I’m so sad my ps3 doesn’t work anymore bc I want to play it again. The combat was weirdly difficult at some points, but it was fun. And that plot. DAT PLOT. DAT MESSAGE. 

It’s about the importance of facing the bad and even traumatic memories of our pasts. That no matter how painful they may be, they’re part of what makes us human, and without it we cease to be people. 

The idea of the memory bank started with such pure intentions, too. A tech genius’s wife and daughter were in a horrible car crash, and it was technically the kid’s fault. She was destroyed by the guilt of knowing her mother’s facial scar and brand new brain damage which caused her daily pain and threw her into occasional INTENSE fits of rage was all her fault, and all he wanted to do was bring his daughter RELIEF from that guilt. 

he remixed her memory of the crash, reformulated it into a sequence of events which made the accident...well, an accident. An accident that was in no way her fault. You later have to go back and UNMIX your own childhood memory to figure out what actually happened. But the dad only remixed her MEMORY of the event, not the event itself, so suddenly protagonist Nilin grew up with the idea that her mother unfairly blamed her for an accident which she was convinced was in no way her fault. Good intentions, but...

Further, when Nilin suddenly has the burden of guilt lifted from her shoulders, her dad realizes he can help OTHER people. He can take away the guilt and pain of every traumatic memory people have suffered. He can HELP people!

Problem: it quickly becomes an addiction, where the wealthy just file away every unpleasant memory, while the poor common man either has to live with their memories in the gutter, or suffer glitches as their memories begin to corrupt from excessive filing and refiling. Eventually, they may become criminals, and when you’re imprisoned for crime in Neo-Paris, they take all your memories and they just store them in a separate database. Or even erase them entirely.

Which is what was supposed to happen to protagonist Nilin, except she had a best friend who was obviously a computer the whole time, Edge. Edge had a backup of virtually every memory Nilin’s ever had that was recorded on data, even her childhood. Especially her childhood. Somehow this doesn’t strike her as suspicious. (probably bc of all the rumors that Edge, the mysterious head of this terrorist organization is her boyfriend, and you just kinda assume she trusted her boyfriend with that stuff)

BUT

but the whole concept! Memories! Their importance! 

And EDGE!

SPOILERS but Edge actually IS the memory bank, so by the current point he’s pretty much literally MADE of every bad memory the Neo-Parisians don’t want to live with. Everything from traumatic memories to unpleasant encounters with strangers on the street are all he has in his head, and he’s TIRED of being the scapegoat just because humanity doesn’t want to face their own pasts. Good memories have become another part of consumerism, leaving those in the slums even worse off, but on ANOTHER level. And when their wealth fails even the higher ups, it fails them HARD. If their memories fail, they could die. Or worse, become corrupted walking corpses, seeking out whatever clean data and electricity they can get their hands on, unable to even remember how to function as a living human. They’re only technically alive at that point, run by a glitching electrical system in their brain. 

That’s a fate worse than death. 

UGHHHH I LOVE IT i wanna play it again nuuu

[kiraelric]

Katsuki Bakugou and Society

I previous wrote this post and decided to go into it in depth a little more. Since I’ve found that a lot of people don’t really seem to think about how the society of BNHA’s work really works because quirks well, they aren’t a really thing - right?  So everything functions like our world does - right?  Wrong. 

They are living in a world of powers that could potentially kill if used incorrectly. 

So as I begin to write this I just want to say that I will try my best to use only the official translation and to cite where things are coming from when I bring up the manga. Currently Vol. 10 is the last released volume in the States so that’s all I’ve got.  When citing from unofficial translation i will pull strictly from Mangastream and no where else. Thank you. Please understand I’m doing my best to provide information in the best way I can.  

So I think it’s important to start when Katsuki was 4. He was a child in a society that was built on everyone around you gaining a super power and depending what your superpower was decided your worth to society. 

So please think of it like this: 

The stronger your quirk the more potential you have, but as long as you had a quirk you had potential. So basically, if you ended up getting the unlucky straw in the gene pool and ended up quirkless (I’m sorry Izuku) that meant you were worthless to society and shunned by those around you. 

So I want you all to keep this in mind as I say that even after Katsuki Bakugou’s powerful quirk manifested, he continued to be friends with quirkless Izuku Midoriya. 

(Vol. 2 )

While on a high horse, yes. He still continued to hang around Izuku / allow Izuku to hang around him.  

And has I have mentioned in previous posts, not only does Izuku call Katsuki “Kacchan”, Katsuki allows it.   

He’s letting a quirkless boy stay by his side, someone who society as a whole has deemed worth less than nothing because he has no way to give back in the form of a supernatural power. 

He’s already a little rebel at the age of four. 

But it’s when he’s four that the praise starts. The segregation starts. 

(Vol 2)

Katsuki is instantly praised, told of his potential and recognized for his natural abilities by his peers and his elders. He has a powerful quirk so he’s ranked high in the hierarchy of the world. 

Meanwhile: 

(Vol 2)

It’s revealed that Izuku is in fact one of the unlucky ones and he is quirkless. The teachers don’t comfort him. There is no uplifting words to keep him going. Worse yet, his peers aren’t scolded for picking on him and making fun of him.  

This world is not like our own. That kind of behavior is unacceptable. We all know this. We all have been told “treat others the way you want to be treated.” at some point in our lives, but it doesn’t apply here, because Izuku is quirkless  so what do they care?  He’s worthless. 

Katsuki was then in turn, influenced to believe such things himself. Why should he think any better of his friend when his peers and elders do not. Society shaped his opinion, and he never saw anything else to counter this opinion either. 

If you do the math, it’s stated:  “Nearly 80% of the population in the world has some form of super powers and that leaves only 20% of the population quirkless.”

That being said,  The current world population of OUR world RIGHT NOW is about 7.5 billion people. That means only 20% of that number would have no powers. That’s  1,500,000,000 / 7,500,000,000 or to make that look less scary, that means 15 in every 75 people are quirkless or to make that even smaller,

1 / 5 people have no super power.  

“But that doesn’t seem that bad, Kira.” You say as you look at the number. But please remember, this problem spans the entire world, just because the number seems smaller doesn’t mean that that quirklessness is evenly dispersed.  

For all we know, Izuku was the only quirkless person in his entire neighborhood - which was a smaller neighborhood at that. 

I’m quite rumor of his issue spread quickly, leaving Inko shamed for having a quirkless son, and Katsuki with the problem of having a quirkless friend. 

So he played the “You’re just a Deku” card, and made himself appear like the top dog, but the trick is. Yes, he was mean. Yes, he was an asshole. Yes, he did things that were uncalled for. 

But he still remained friends with Izuku. 

“They aren’t friends” you say, as I lift the 9th volume of the series and show you the character introductions. 

(Vol 9)

9 continual Volumes (10 does not have character introductions or I would show you that)  And Katsuki Bakugou has been described as nothing but “Midoriya’s childhood friend.”  That is how the author of this series wants you, the reader, to see him. Nothing less, nothing more.  

He wants you to know that growing up, Izuku and Katsuki were friends. He wants you to know that Izuku was friends with someone with an explosive temper, and Katsuki was friends with a quirkless dreamer.  The Author thinks their friendship is important enough to introduce Katsuki in the same fashion for 9 volumes of the series.  

So please, remember that they never stopped being friends. 

Because they certainly haven’t, nor do they deny it. 

Please remember this fact because it affects how they act and how they carry themselves. 

So there Katsuki is with a powerful, flashy quirk - and he’s told this many times over - destined to succeed - born to do so. Unable to make functional, healthy relationships because the people that want to be around him only want to be around him because of the strength of his quirk, and the person he spends too much time paying attention to can’t be around him because it looks bad in the eyes of society. 

He’s caught between a rock and a hard place. His quirk is so powerful, his view has been tainted to believe that he doesn’t need to spend time with those who have “lesser quirks” but he can’t help but find himself wanting to focus his energy on someone that the world has deemed as worthless. 

For example, his bad habit of referring to those around him as ‘extras’: 

(Vol 1)

and his inability to laugh at Izuku’s ambitions of getting into U.A., when the rest of the class seemingly has no problem at all. 

(vol 1)

Even their teacher laughs, but Katsuki doesn’t. 

So there’s a thing about the way the world works, and it took functions on the power of your quirk. I reference this for example: 

(Volume 9, right before chapter 78)

To summarize, all quirks are banned from being used in public because of the ones that carry the potential to kill, however should someone still break those laws, depending on the strength of their quirk it could be overlooked entirely. 

As the article states, it’s a very heavy-handed law. 

While I understand why they have things set up the way they do, it is insensitive.  There is no way Inko could really cause much harm with her quirk unless she was intending to, while one wrong slip and Bakugou could do a lot of damage.  I understand that. 

But think of it in a way that, you’re being told as a very small child “No honey, you can’t use your quirk because you could hurt someone. It’s dangerous.” and then seeing someone else your age use their’s and only get a warning. 

Children don’t have the ability to separate, “Me” from “something I can do”.  

So honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Katsuki started thinking of himself in the terms of how much explosive power he could put out and not how to carry himself as a person. Because quirks are all that matter, right? 

It makes more sense when you think in those terms why, at 15-years-old he can understand the psychics of how much force is required to propel himself forward, stop and change direction without hurting himself.  Why at 15-year-old, he knows how much force a human body can take to lift it off the ground and what timing needs to be applied to keep doing so and not fall. 

Think about the time and effort he put into controlling his quirk. How much practice it had to have taken him? 

Katsuki’s quirk can kill and he knows it so he learned how to be pin-point precise with it. 

On top of this, where does he practice? He can’t pull off stunts like this in public, he’d get arrested. Quirk use without a license is illegal remember?

This kid is dedicated, and has to work around society’s rules just to function because he was that good with his quirk before he entered U.A.  

So when did he have time to “bully and abuse” Izuku? He was too busy perfecting his quirk, and not getting caught doing it at that. 

So on to his attitude. 

Meet Mitsuki Bakugou, his mother, 

(Chapter 96, MangaStream)

If this is the behavior Katsuki experiences in front of his teachers, what does he experience behind closed doors? She literally blamed Katsuki for being too weak and it being his fault for being kidnapped. His explosive temper didn’t appear out of thin air. He’s lived his entire life with not only pressure from his elders and peers outside the home, but pressure to succeed inside as well,  and it’s easy to see that Masaru (Dad) doesn’t have much pull in how the house functions either. 

Nature vs Nurture - Katsuki was in a place that nurtured aggressive behavior. It makes me wonder just how long he’s seen that kind of behavior and how long he’s taken that kind of abuse. 

Worse yet, they way he’s treated at the end of the Sport’s festival is appalling. 

(vol 5)

Regardless of his aggressive nature, there was no reason to apply such heavy restraints to a 15-year-old boy - if any at that. The world around him, showed fear of his power instead of celebrating his victory. He was treated more like a wild animal and less like the victor of the entire festival. Even when All Might removes the gag from his mouth, he makes no attempt to cause someone harm, he merely just attempts to depute his victory. 

(vol 5)

There was absolutely no form of danger present. Katsuki was literally 0% a threat but yeah he was restrained so harshly. That was completely out of line and I stand by it. He wanted nothing more to do than to depute his victory because he wanted nothing but the best from his opponent and he didn’t get it.  

It makes me wonder, how many times has he been told he’s dangerous? How many times was he judged because of his power? As he progresses in the series, and because of that incident, it starts to appear to outside eyes that he would be better suited to that exact opposite of his goals. 

(vol 9)

Society literally labeled him as a threat when he’s training his heart out to become a symbol of safety in the world. He didn’t get any say in it. He doesn’t have a stake in his own life. Society decided that because he has an aggressive personality, because he forcefully pushes himself to succeed at all costs that makes him a threat. 

Are you serious? 

This child has nearly died twice in the series, been labeled a villain, suffers from a complicated home life and is stuck in a situation where he is not allowed to be friends with the only person who actually matters to him. He’s felt scared, abandoned and had a complete mental breakdown over the loss of his childhood hero. 

Katsuki blames himself for the loss of All Might and in turn the downturn of Society’s structure because it was entirely built around the safety and protection they felt from having the Symbol of Peace.

(Chapter 118 / Mangastream)

Katsuki took such emotional responsibility over something he had no control over that he literally let it drive him mad to the point of an emotional breakdown. He had no control over how All Might acted, or did with his power, but he insisted that if he had been stronger none of this would have ever happened.

In Katsuki’s mind, if he had fulfilled his role in society, if he had been as strong as he was supposed to be by society’s standards then none of this ever would have happened. 

Katsuki takes responsibility for himself. So much so that he faults himself for being human, and being unprepared due to his youth and inexperience. 

(chapter 120 / Mangastream)

Strength is what society promised him. Strength is what he was supposed to obtain do to his “strong, flashy quirk” but all it’s brought was misfortune and times of helplessness over and over again. It’s no wonder  he broke down. It’s no wonder he’s so high strung. It’s no wonder he acts the way he does. 

And please remember that this fight was the second time, we’ve seen Katsuki Bakugou cry and yet again it was in front of one Izuku Midoriya. The only person that is ever allowed to see his weakness. The only person who’s ever treated him like a person and not based on the value he has because of his quirk. 

That’s why I say he’s so conflicted with Izuku. He allows him to see his downfall but refuses to accept help. 

(Chapter 118 / Mangastream)

It’s almost like he wants to prove that he’s not the person, the thing, the threat that society has labeled him as, but the only person he can talk to is Izuku - but there is still that wall that he can’t seem to let himself climb over. Even with a quirk now, Izuku was always someone who was supposed to be “beneath” him so why is he the only one who treats me like more than explosive power? 

Katsuki just doesn’t know how to cope. It’s like having so many rules and standards in place in your life for so long, how do you break them? It’s not like he’s not trying. Even not knowing how he got a quirk, Katsuki cares that he did.  Even not being able to think of him as anything but quirkless, he still wants to gauge his progression. 

(Vol 1)

He just can’t bring himself to accept that Deku is worthless; that Deku can’t do great things - because if he could he could have filled him in with the rest of the ‘extras’.  

Izuku matters to him, and that’s put him at odds with society since he was 4. 

So really when it comes to Katsuki it’s just important to remember that he’s not as much of an ‘asshole’ as he’s made out to be, but more that he’s aggressively passionate about what he wants and he’ll do anything to achieve it. 

He’s gifted, and blessed with a powerful high end quirk. Unfortunately his explosive attitude makes him appear more negative than positive. But he’s emotional responsible and puts his all into everything he does. He’s honestly a good guy, he’s just dealt with a lot of shit. 

The most important thing to remember though is, he’s 15 - (16 in current Manga) he’s still growing. 

[jagadeeshkrishnan]

The Path of Experience

There is a mysterious substance behind man's existence. The wise men have tried to define and explain it, but most people have not yet been able to understand it. In the last decades, a tremendous awakening has taken place all over the world and now people have accepted the fact that there is a very mysterious power at the core, at the basis of existence.

From where do the thoughts come and from where does the consciousness emanate? There are thousands of such questions which man has not been able to answer. We can discuss and explain them very clearly in theoretical terms, but they will never be understood in this way, because this mysterious substance is not a matter of knowledge, but of experience. We may have perfected our intellectual concepts; we may comprehend the nature of the substance in perfect mathematical terms and be able to explain it in thousands of equations, but the ultimate thing that needs to be achieved is 'the experience'.

When we realise the necessity of the experience, then we have to take a different direction altogether. The experience is not an outcome of intellect or even of scientific thinking, it is the culmination of a process of jumping over the mind. Knowledge is confined within the category of the mind; the experience is beyond mind, intellect, and emotion. Knowledge can be redefined but experience cannot. What is the way to the experience? Do we get this experience through a process of transmission? Can this experience be explained and understood, or is it an outcome of a process in which you transcend time and space barriers?

We know of two ways to achieve this experience, the vedic way and the tantric way. We have heard plenty about the vedic way in the past, but now we are talking about the tantric way of discovering this mysterious substance. Maybe you already have your own personal opinion about tantra. If so, for the time being, please forget all those concepts, otherwise it may' not be possible for you to comprehend the entire role of tantra. Tantra literally means expansion of consciousness and liberation of energy. There are books which say that tantra is occultism, magic, sexual sublimation, or an underground spiritual practice. However, this is not the grammatical, etymological, philosophical or traditional meaning of tantra.

A process by which you are able to expand your personal consciousness is one aspect of tantra. Our consciousness is confined within an area; the mind functions within a given space. The activities of the mind and its capacities are related to the senses and sense experience. For example, you can only hear as much as your auditory system allows you; you can only see as far as your optic system allows you. This is the limitation of the personal mind. There are minute forms in this universe which you are unable to see. There are resonant waves of sound which you are unable to hear. This indicates that the mind functions within a very small, confined area.

Therefore, what we have to do is to break the barriers, then the mind can flow out of its confinement and experience infinity. But mind is dependent on the information supplied. If the sensory channels are incapable of supplying the information, then the mind is paralysed. If your judgement, logic, or mathematics fail to supply the necessary information and decisions to the mind, the mind fails. This is the limitation of mind. If you want to break this behaviour pattern, then you have to adopt a new system; you have to expand the mind.

Science of mantra and yantra

Expansion of mind takes place through certain techniques in which you isolate the mind and allow it to slow down. This is the process of tantric techniques. In this system the first technique is the science of mantra. If you want to expand the mind and realise the mysterious substance behind man's existence, then mantra is the first step.

Mantra is a vehicle for awakening the deeper forces within oneself. Each mantra has certain wavelengths and frequencies that are able to penetrate the internal structure of the mind. If you practise a mantra even without trying to concentrate your mind, the sound waves that resonate during the practice permeate through and through your physical and inter-physical system. The different types of waves that you initiate while repeating the mantra, permeate a new dimension of your consciousness according to your practices. When you chant mantra, sometimes it produces standing waves, resonant waves, or rhythmic waves. When these various waves are produced, they not only influence the atmosphere outside, but the whole mental structure of your personality.

A sound is not just a noise. It is a wave that carries electrical vibrations with certain amounts of energy. When you practise mantra, the sound produced moves in a certain pattern. However, the sound recorded by your consciousness is not exactly the same as the sound heard through your ears. In the deeper mind, the sound of each mantra has its own archetype. Therefore, the sound of mantra has a totally different effect on our consciousness than other sounds which we may produce or utter.

Many people ask, 'What is Om?' Om is the dimension of your consciousness. When you chant Om, it penetrates into your consciousness and assumes a geometrical pattern. Every sound has a specific form- circular, triangular, rectangular, hexagonal, and almost any combination of so many types of geometrical patterns. These forms are not hypothetical, suppositional or imaginary. They are archetypes, and each sound has its own corresponding archetype. The archetype of mantra is known as yantra, and therefore, mantra is the subtle form of everything.

No need for concentration

The mantra you practise creates a lot of force within your inner self. Although you can concentrate with the help of a mantra, mantra is not a tool of concentration. The purpose of mantra is to permeate your whole body, mind, and spirit with resonant vibrations. Therefore, when you are practising mantra, even if your mind is not concentrated but jumping from thought to thought, you are still getting the full benefits.

Once I told my guru that the mantra he had given me was of no use because when I practised it, my mind would jump about like a monkey. What is the value of repeating a mantra if it doesn't concentrate the mind?

He gave me some very practical advice: 'You do so many things in life which apparently have no value. So why don't you continue with the mantra for an extra five minutes.' I repeated my mantra as he ordered for years together with absolute regularity. Even though I had no faith in it, the mantra had very deep and powerful effects on the whole structure of my consciousness. I practise it even today. So in tantric techniques, mantra is the first and foremost practice, which does not require concentration.

Expression rather than suppression

Everybody wants to realise and experience the mysterious substance behind man's existence, but they don't want to break the wall which separates them from it. They paint it again and again and keep the secret substance in obscurity.

When you sit for meditation and a thought comes, you suppress it. Thoughts of worry, anxiety, passion, anguish - different types of thoughts come to the mind when you practise mantra meditation. If you leave them unattended, they will crop up again. This is not the tantric way. The tantric way of dealing with the mind is to attend to each thought as it arises, and finish with it forever. That is the only way you will surpass it.

Even if you are able to isolate your mind, you cannot channelize it. You may be able to disassociate the mind from the sensory channels so that the senses cannot supply stimuli, but what about the inherent nature of the mind ? Mind is a bundle of samskaras, impressions. There are thousands of memories, of experiences. How are you going to deal with this multifarious nature of the mind? If you try to perform mental genocide, you will have to pay horribly. How many impressions in the mind are you going to decry, and who is going to do the job? This is how you create animosity within your own personality. Your religious mind says this is bad, and your free mind says it is good. So you already have two checks on one mind. This creates what we call internal conflict, which ultimately makes you schizophrenic.

You must allow the mind to think without opposing, abusing, or hating it. If there are any evil thoughts in the mind, learn to accept them; do not suppress them. Whatever thoughts arise, learn to face them with full awareness. They are your inheritance from childhood, from your parents, and from society. They are your personality, your structure. They are 'you', and you must not try to kill yourself. Therefore, when you practise mantra, please don't quarrel with yourself. If your mind is running into fantasies, let it go.

Learn to witness the mind. Sometimes it regresses into the remote past, sometimes it goes into the very distant and unclear future. If you allow your mind total independence and liberty, it will transcend itself even without your knowledge. The path of experience is not so long and tedious. The experience is here and now. It is already in you, so you don't have to develop it. It has always been in existence, but you are not able to experience it because you are bound by certain limitations. Allow your mind to flow, to break its barriers, to be anarchical, to wander freely like a vagabond, to commit crimes (inside, of course). Allow it to find itself, give it space to run, and let it experience psychic forms. Don't worry about bad thoughts, or be happy about good ones. Just see them as you see cars moving down the street. You are aware of them, but you have no personal involvement. Like this, there is endless traffic in the mind, and when you are trying to practise mantra, the rush hour begins.

The mind is constantly resonating, vibrating with all kinds of impressions, even now, but you don't see it, you don't know it, because your senses are engaged. As soon as you isolate your mind, you can see the whole beautiful game it constantly plays. The more you evolve in spiritual life, the more you become aware of the homogeneity of the mind. So therefore, in tantra, do not aim at killing any of the expressions of the mind. Mind is not your problem at all- you are the mind's problem, always wanting more experiences. So whenever you practise mantra, yantra or kriya yoga, please remember that you are not going to fight with the mind. As you practise your sadhana, you must see that you don't interfere at all with the mind and the experiences that come to you.

Bindu - the ultimate point

In tantra the way of meditation is spontaneous. In kriya yoga, for example, there comes a moment when you experience expanded consciousness even if you do not want to. Tantra is liberation of energy. This energy, called shakti, is the sum total of the creation of the universe. To be in tune with shakti is the discovery of the self. The destiny of man is to discover the absolute universal energy. This is the bindu, the point. In a circle, there is one curve which represents time, a second curve which represents space, a third curve which represents object, and a fourth curve which represents transcendental consciousness. Then there is bindu, the point or dot at the centre which represents the absolute. This is the nature of reality and of the universe- time, space, object, transcendence, and the ultimate point.

In tantra, the emphasis is on bindu. The whole universe is an expansion from that bindu; matter has exploded out of bindu. Bindu is one absolute, but it has divided itself into millions. It is endless, and every speck of creation is absolute. There is no imperfection in this great universe, in everything you see around you- past, present and future. That is the extent of bindu.

So the bindu point at the eyebrow centre is the nucleus of the universal mind. It is the tiniest of points which explodes into the whole of creativity. When you concentrate on bindu, what happens? Time and space come closer. Otherwise they are very far from each other.

Imagine what is time and what is space. They are not outside- they are within the mind. Time and space are qualities, characteristics of the mind. If there is no time and no space, there is no mind; and if there is no mind, there is no time and no space. When you say mind, you must assume time and space, and when you say time and space, you must assume mind.

When you concentrate on bindu, time and space come closer. Time is positive and space is negative. One is Shiva and the other is Shakti. In symbolic language, one is male and the other female; one is plus and the other is minus. Mind consists of time and space; if you separate them, mind drops away. Bring them together and mind is assembled.

If you bring time and space together and connect them, what happens? It is the same as when you bring two electric wires, one positive and one negative, together- there is a spark. Bring time and space together and they will start sparking. But if you bring them closer to the bindu, there is an explosion of energy, like a bomb. This explosion is the self in tantra. I use the word explosion here but actually words have no meaning in spiritual life. Only the experience has any relevance.

Bindu is the womb of matter and the two poles of universal mind are time and space. We exist in time and space, so we can't take time or space and throw them away. Only at the time of death, are time and space withdrawn into the universal mind at two different poles. Then they leave the body and enter into another body. But this is not what we mean here. We are talking about liberation of time and space, about active participation of time and space in relation to spiritual life. Therefore, when you practise concentration on bindu in the eyebrow centre, whatever experience arises, you must only feel that time and space are coming closer to each other. When this explosive awakening takes place, then what happens? Matter issues forth- the universal mind breaks into millions of fragments. It is all in the form of nebulae with each fragment a complete bindu, an absolute creator. It is like the atom splitting itself into thousands of atoms, all over.

At this time you have completed your evolution; the destiny of human life has been fulfilled. Just as when you finish university, you go out into the world and begin to work. So in spiritual life, when you have completed your evolutionary cycle, you go out and become a co-creator, a junior god. That's the ultimate goal to which tantra leads mankind.

Satsang on Tantra

Can you tell us about the origin of Tantra?

Tantra is the first discovery of man. It predates vedic literature but it was not recorded in the written form until after the vedic period.

In ancient days when man was living closer to nature, he moved with the spontaneity of natural behaviour. His concepts about philosophy, God and morality were not the basic philosophy of a society, nation or religion- they were more for his own personal evolution. He began to think about realising a higher status in life rather than the higher values of a society. You must differentiate between these two. Higher values in life is spirituality. Higher values of a society is civilisation and a nation. In our world today there are many countries with higher social standards, but with very low values of life.

This tantric system did not spring from any organised system or planned method. It originated with each individual as a natural urge. To give you a very gross example: hunger is not an organised urge. A man feels hunger individually and tries to satisfy it by any means available. If he is beneath a fruit tree he will eat fruit; if he is in the forest he will hunt an animal for his food and so on. In this same way tantra developed with the individual.

As the evolution of man took place, he experienced many peculiar things and he began to wonder how they happened. For example, if someone dreamed that something was going to happen and it actually did happen, he began to wonder how he could dream of the events to come. So the thinking people began to seek the source of their intuitive knowledge and finally they came to conclude that there was a higher mind and that mind was not restricted by time and space. Man began to think of his existence, wanting to overcome his mental limitations and to realise that higher spiritual being within. For this purpose he developed certain practices which aroused his personal consciousness, made him more intuitive, and increased his awareness. This is how tantra began and continued expanding.

In many different countries, including India and Mexico, hundreds of practices were developed for the awakening of one particular faculty. People tried various methods of concentration and worship of gods. They tried herbs, minerals, narcotics, alcohol, fermented substances, chanting of mantras, the use of sounds like the drum, bell, conch, and all forms of music and dancing. However, it was chaotic in the beginning without books or a proper system.

It was not until later, after the vedic period, that certain spiritually minded people realised the great potential that lay within the tantric system and wrote it down in book form. Some suggested austere and puritanical life. Others recommended meditation and spiritual practices, and there were some who suggested the path of devotion and religion. This is how the science of tantra developed in the course of time.

What is the link between the ancient civilisations and the practices of tantra which are being revived today?

A lot will have to be said about it. As far as we know, the Atlantis civilisation was aware of the different tantric practices, symbology and other forms of experience. These were already present in the human mind in the Atlantean era, some 45,000 years ago. Every form of knowledge has its symbol in the universal mind. Just as modern computers have a symbolical language, so the human brain possesses archetypes in the form of geometrical shapes which we know as yantras in the science of tantra. Utilising these yantras the Atlantean people were able to organise the knowledge and create a structure of experience which enabled the individual to become aware of the psychic dimension of his personality.

Eventually some crisis must have occurred, compelling the Atlanteans to make a fast exodus. Some of them went as far a field as Latin America, while others went to the European continent, to the Indian subcontinent and to the Far East. I have been through many different countries and I was surprised to see some of the pre-Colombian art pieces in San Agustin, Colombia, and in Lima, Peru. In the open air museums there, the yogic postures, mudras, bandhas and yantras are clearly depicted in stone and terracotta figures.

Unfortunately, in almost every country, the tantric tradition is completely lost today. But the tradition was quietly maintained in India by some very sincere people who had the help of the more conscious and influential of the country. If you read through the most ancient books - the Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas, you will realise that the tantric tradition was the basis of every kind of knowledge in former times.

Nowadays, the basis of this knowledge remains encoded in the language, pictures and diagrams of tantra. Only very recently have scientists been able to discover that the human mind possesses its own archetypes and endless forms, symbols and languages, and that the understanding of language and perception depends on what is already contained in the universal mind.

Global evidence strongly suggests that a prior ancient civilisation has already realised, recognised and understood the reality of the universal mind and the individual mind. However, in spite of all the evidence, universal mind is still just a concept or hypothesis.

What are the differences between Indian tantra and Tibetan tantra?

In the Buddhist period, tantra was divided into two aspects, known as purusha, consciousness, and shakti or energy. Both consciousness and energy are within us in a united form. But for creation to take place, they have to first be realised separately. Now when you separate them, either you follow the prakriti path (shakti) or you follow consciousness (purusha). The Buddhist system preferred to follow the path of purusha tantra, whereas in India they followed the path known as prakriti tantra.

I will explain it to you in a different way. When you sit for meditation there are two distinct things which come before you. One is the awareness of consciousness, and the second is awareness of the experience. Now, what exactly are you going to do? You try to eradicate one of them. If you are meditating on a particular point and any thought or experience comes into your mind, you push it out and try to maintain consciousness. You try to separate consciousness from all experiences, thoughts and feelings; from every point of mental activity. This means that you are following the tantra of purusha.

In prakriti tantra, the practices develop concentration in order to explode the shakti from within. Many thoughts, many experiences and psychic visions will come into your mind and you may actually forget your mantra (Om), which is the symbol of purusha. Instead you will follow the experiences. You may see a blue sky, clouds, bright colours or any other symbol. Whatever you see you follow.

When you concentrate your mind on a symbol and continue to concentrate on that symbol, it is known as the path of purusha tantra. But when you become aware of the effects of that concentration meditation, it is called prakriti tantra. Tibet follows the tantra of purusha, and India the tantra of prakriti.

What are the different kinds of tantra?

In order to develop the higher mind, numerous practices were devised and these practices formed the different paths of tantra. The first path is known as dakshina marga or 'right hand tantra'. It is for those who are beginning to live a spiritual life, whether they are renunciates or householders. This path talks of austerity and purity - purity of thought, food, life and devotion, as in Christianity and Hinduism. The path of 'right hand tantra' is a very slow one which can be compared to travelling by bullock cart.

Of course many people were not satisfied with this path, so they made it more powerful by adding the practices of yoga- asana, pranayama, mudra, bandha, hatha yoga. But still they found that this was not a very quick way. The only difference was that it was like travelling by bicycle. So they discovered new ways, including the path of kundalini yoga.

In kundalini yoga they discovered mooladhara chakra and that if you can awaken this chakra, you can easily develop the higher mind. So the next thing they realised was that the sexual act could accomplish this. During the sexual act, two opposite energies are created by the man and the woman, and these energies can cause an explosive awakening in mooladhara chakra.

Then the question arose: 'But everybody does it, and their kundalini doesn't awaken?' So they began to think about it. Then came the practices of vajroli mudra and sahajoli mudra. Utilising vajroli mudra, the shakti could be prevented from passing out. Generally when orgasm ends, a fall takes place, but if the orgasm can be contained or continued, mooladhara awakens and shakti can be directed up into the brain. Now the whole position changed, and the people began to practise this new form of tantra in great numbers. This became known as vama marga, the 'left hand tantra'.

In kundalini yoga the brain is said to be the centre of higher consciousness, but it is not fully functioning. The brain has different areas and most of them are totally inactive. These inactive zones have special capacities which can be evolved through the tantric practices. Out of all the tantric systems, the quickest is the left hand path, but the right hand path is for a beginner. If you have no mental control, then you must follow right hand tantra, but if you are an advanced sadhaka or a yogi, and have control over your mind, you can practise left hand tantra.

The use of herbs was also introduced. About five to ten thousand years ago there was a plant, a type of creeper, named soma. They used to make a beverage or juice from soma and drink it on full moon night. With this they were able to transcend time, space and object. But they soon found that soma was not suitable for all, because many people could not face the transcendental experiences which it brought on. So they began to search for smoother ways as well.

There is a dialogue between Shiva and Parvati. Parvati, as a disciple, approaches Shiva and asks him the way to develop one's innate power. Shiva instructs her that there are not one, but thousands of ways. For those people who are not very evolved, and who have animal tendencies, there are certain practices. Those who have human tendencies have other types of practices, and those who are sattvic, quiet in nature, have different practices again. So in fact, in the science of tantra, there are as many practices as there are human temperaments.

Why is there so much secrecy attached to the tantric practices?

There is nothing to hide in the tantric tradition, but for over ten centuries we have lived under the subjugation of those who followed different religious and political philosophies. These traditions considered some of the elements of tantra as sinful. Therefore, the attitude of the people towards tantra has changed, and so these questions are being asked. People have been converted to such an extent that their philosophical respect for tantra has been shattered and annihilated.

According to dharma the marital relationship, or the relationship between the two forces of nature, can never be considered sinful. It was considered as a dharma, a samskara. This is made clear in the vedic Smritis also. If you study the life of the rishis and munis of the past, you will understand that some of the elements considered as sinful by certain traditions are not considered as such in vedic tradition.

The word tantra is a composition of two words, 'tanoti' and 'trayati'. Tanoti represents expansion and trayati stands for liberation. Therefore, tantra means expansion of mind and liberation of energy. Just as you liberate energy from matter, shakti is liberated from the mind. Here liberation does not stand to denote a religious state; liberation should be understood in the light of modern science. Energy is liberated from matter in the same way as butter is separated from milk. This is tantra.

What is the relationship between yoga and tantra?

Yoga is an offshoot of tantra. The practices of mahamudra, mahabheda mudra, siddhasana, padmasana, pranayama and so on, are all from the tantric texts. All the practices of hatha yoga and bhakti yoga were a part of tantra. The system of mantra is considered to be the very definition of tantra, and yantras and mandalas constitute the very life, the very substance of tantra. Kriya yoga is a part of tantra, and kundalini yoga, with its concepts of chakra awakening; ida, pingala and sushumna nadis, also arose from tantra.

Therefore, yoga as we know it today, is in fact tantra. But during history, people started criticising tantra because it accepted sexual life. Some religions believed that sexual life was not the divine life, others thought that if you want to rise high, you should abstain from sex. There were some religions which taught that sex was a sin. So when these religions became powerful, they began to oppose tantra.

Then the wise people took yoga out of tantra. They abandoned that part that was criticised and adopted that which was acceptable. So yoga is an offshoot of tantra.

How does the path of tantra differ from that of raja yoga?

In raja yoga there is withdrawal from life; in tantra there is acceptance of life. If a person drinks, leads an active sexual life, or eats meat, he can still evolve in the system of tantra. But in certain orthodox systems, these things are considered to be unholy, and if you have recourse to them, you will fall spiritually. In tantra, your way of life, according to your nature, is no barrier to spiritual illumination. Whether you drink or not is never held against you. Whether you are married or leading the life of a celibate, it is perfectly all right. Tantra will not force you to go against your beliefs.

The main premise in tantra yoga is that spiritual awakening can be had by anyone, under any circumstances, at any level of existence. Man should not oppose or antagonise nature; he should be spontaneous and learn to flow with it. If he opposes nature, he will develop a split personality by creating two patterns of thought.

When travelling in India and Nepal, I was intrigued by the temple art. Can you tell me why they display sexual interaction in such a spectacular manner?

Did you try to think about it? That which is behind the veil should be placed in front. Inhibitions have to be broken, so that the mind is exploded, so that there is nothing in the mind that is secret. By creating a social philosophy and social traditions, man hides from himself. This is not absolutely necessary. Man has certain inhibitions and these inhibitions have made him hide things. But the hidden things remain in his mind, unanalysed, unexpressed and unattended. Eventually they become archetypes, influencing the deeper personality.

One may not even know that this process is happening. These hidden things may influence the body or mind, leading to a cancer or perhaps disturbing the family relationships. They may damage the personality or they may inspire the creative faculties within the artist.

The statues in the great temples are the creations of artists. These painters and sculptors were very free. They thought about these hidden things and brought them to the public eye through their creations, so that people could see them for thousands of years. I have seen these temples in Nepal, Jaganath Puri, Konorak, and Khajuraho many times. But they hold no surprise, shame or fascination for me. Once the veil is lifted, the deep archetypes within the mind become known. Then the symbols or forms which express them are understood for what they are without any sense of repulsion or intrigue.

When most people look at these symbols, they see something which they know, but which they don't want to face. An area of consciousness is behind the curtain, and the curtain has to be thrown aside. I can see what I know; I don't see any difference between the temple art and the pictures in a gallery or exhibition. I can see them both equally because for me nothing new is depicted. Why shouldn't these forms be expressed? After all, they represent a necessary aspect of creation.

By

Jagadeesh Krishnan

Psychologists and International Author

[spilledinkstories]

Mushroom Soup

  "You can't leave the fort until you say it, Emma" Adam said bossily. We had been friends for our entire childhood, and got along pretty well, and I had never known Adam to be a bully.

   "What's the point in saying it if it's a lie," I argued. The truth was, he was scaring me a little. At eleven years old I was old enough to know there were dark and mysterious forces in this world, but too young to tell how they worked, or to know the difference between harmless fun and Scary Stuff. And, when I was eleven, most stuff was Scary Stuff. 

    "C'mon, we'll both be late for dinner if you don't just say it." 

    My knees were beginning to ache from kneeling on the boards of his treehouse. He and I were kneeling, facing each other, holding a weird shiny rock he had found that he insisted was a moonrock. When I had questioned the authenticity of such a rock, he'd told me last night when he let his puppy out back to do it's business, there was a moonbeam, like a spotlight, shining in the middle of their lawn, and he saw this rock fall from the sky. 

    I'd wasted no time telling him I thought he was mental. 

    So here I was, holding a corner of a rock with my best friend, being told I'd be locked in the treehouse if I didn't chant with him that aliens were real and we wished to be "taken to their leader". 

    "What's the chant again?" I asked him dully. Might as well get this over with, right? My mom was making baked Mac n' Cheese, and I did not wanna be late for that. 

    "I wish, I wish, upon a star, for you to take me where you are. I believe that you are real, aliens, hear our appeal." He looked at me with the utmost pride in his eyes. 

    "That is without a doubt the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

    "Fine, if you like the treehouse that much," he said grumpily, as he made to stand up. 

    "UGH. Fine. Get back down." He obeyed with a smug little grin. 

    "You know it then?" He asked, and I nodded. "Okay, on three." 

    "One," I said. 

    "Two," he said, eyes wide with excitement. I felt so incredibly foolish. As if anything was going to happen. We were gonna say this, stare at each other for a second, and then move on with our weird little lives. 

    "Three," I said flatly, and then we both spoke in unison. 

    "I wish, I wish, upon a star, for you to take me where you are. I believe that you are real, aliens, hear our appeal."

    "Are you happy?" I asked him, smirking despite my annoyance. 

    "What's that sound?" He asked. We were both still clutching the rock, and his eyes had grown wide as saucers. 

    "Lawn mower?" I said, a little nonplussed. 

    "No, listen." 

    But he needn't have told me. The rumbling and rattling had grown past the usual neighbourhood commotion. It was as though a transport truck was doing donuts around the treehouse. It grew from grumble, to rumble, to roar in a matter of seconds. 

    The boards under our knees began to rattle and shake. We were still holding onto the rock. 

    "What is that?" Adam yelled over the noise. 

    I finally let go of the rock, and went to the door of the treehouse to look out. 

    "Adam!" He came up beside me, peeking through the cutout in the wood door that we called a window.

    I had no words for what we saw. It wasn't what you'd expect a UFO to look like. It wasn't a silver flying saucer with a little bubble type thing coming out of the top, like you might see in a space-themed comic book. 

    The shape of this was essentially a giant can of soup. A cylinder, black like onyx, with a slight sheen to it. Directly in front of the treehouse door, a small slit appeared. Whether it evaporated, or part of the wall retracted into itself, I've never known.

    The roar died for a moment long enough for us to hear the hissed word that followed. 

    "Enter." 

    "At least the aliens speak English!" Adam said cheerfully. 

    The next few moments passed in a blur of motion that I was far too stunned to fight against. Before I knew what was happening to me, Adam had grabbed my hand, opened the treehouse door, and ignoring our step ladder literally just leapt into midair, trusting that there would be some sort of magical alien magnetic beam that would draw us onto the ship. 

    Apparently he knew what he was doing, because that's exactly what happened. 

    The gap in the wall closed behind us, and the roar picked up again. For a painful two minutes or so, I felt like my eyeballs were being sucked into the back of my skull, and like someone was pushing down on the top of my head and my stomach all at once. 

    "We must be leaving the planet," Adam said to me in an anguished voice. I guess that made sense, the air pressure would be pretty intense. 

    "There was a ride at Disney World like this, where you can see what it's like for astronauts, and this is how it felt," he explained. Fair enough, then. 

    After several minutes my brain returned to a functioning capacity, and I opened my eyes again. I realized I was still clutching Adam's hand, and I quickly let go. 

    "I wonder if they came to take it back," Adam mumbled. I looked at him inquisitively, and he held out his other hand to show me that he was still holding that stupid rock. 

    "Oh, my god. If it was that important, why would their stupid ship have crapped it out in the first place?" 

    "Maybe theirs didn't," he said with a shrug. With that, he stood up, looked around and decided on a direction, and started walking down a random hallway. 

        The inside of the ship was pretty nondescript. The walls were a beigy-grey colour, and were flat. No nooks, crannies, seams, screws, just flat wall. Here and there it was interrupted by a door, the kind of door you might expect to see in Star Wars. Sort of like a techy looking sliding panel, I guess. I didn't watch the movies, but Adam loved them. I mean, he loved them. I kept cutting glances over at them, and he never stopped beaming. 

    "Stop," said a hissing voice from behind us. We froze, but unable to face the idea of a creature slinking up behind us, I whipped around. Then I swallowed my laugh. 

    Slouching toward us was a creature that couldn't have been higher than my waist (and I was eleven, after all). It looked like a cross between a mushroom and a monkey, with a big umbrella-like top to its head, complete with spots and freckles, but a relatively humanoid face. For it's body the torso was like the stock of a mushroom, in that it was sort of pale and mushy looking despite also resembling a tree-trunk, but for arms and legs we were back to monkey. 

    As aliens go, it wasn't too scary, and let me remind you that most stuff to eleven year old me was Scary Stuff.

    "You have it?" The creature rasped. 

    "Sorry, we didn't mean to steal it," Adam said earnestly, holding out the rock. 

    "How did you come to acquire it?" The being asked, turning to walk away. Adam immediately fell into step behind it, and I followed a little ways behind, listening. I wanted to go home. I didn't want to be floating through space talking about a pebble while my mom and dad wondered why I hadn't come home for macaroni night.

    "It fell into my yard, where you brought us on board. It had light all around it, so I picked it up." 

    "Why would it have chosen you?" 

    "I don't know. What is it?" Adam was trotting to keep up with the creature now, and I reluctantly struggled to keep pace with them. We had backtracked to where Adam and I had first been brought on board, and were now heading down a separate hallway. This one had black walls and red floor, and I couldn't help but think that in movies, those colours meant they were the bad guys. This hallway had many more doors off it, and I really hoped one of them didn't lead to prison cells or something. I hadn't seen as many space movies as Adam had. I didn't know what to expect, and I was beginning to feel genuinely scared. My breath was feeling more ragged, and my eyes felt bugged out (though that could have been from them almost exploding or whatever a few minutes before). 

    "It is one of the ancient crystals. Each solar system has but a few, forged in the hearts of stars. The lore informs us that whomever the crystal is bestowed upon must play their part in our history, on the intergalactic scale." The creature was still speaking at barely above a whisper, and I almost missed what he was saying over the sound of my panting to keep up. Luckily, we seemed to have arrived at our destination, and my gosh it was a strange thing to behold. 

    We were standing in what can only be described as the bridge of the ship. Soup can. Ship. Whatever.

    We were surrounded by about twenty of these mushroom-monkey-men, all milling about their various duties. As you'd hope, there was a giant window or screen (who's to say, with these things?) which seemed to be plotting our course and providing various information. While the mushroom-man who'd accompanied us so far had been speaking English, the text on the screen was illegible to me. 

    "Sorry, did you say intergalactic scale?" I said, addressing the creature for the first time. 

    "Indeed, child," it said to me in a grave voice. "We will be taking you to the council." 

    "No, we can't go. We have to get home," I said shrilly. The creature had said Adam had to play out his fate here or whatever. I couldn't spend the rest of my life in a soup can. We were both so young, so...that was a long time to spend away from home. Would our parents never hear from us again? Would they organize search parties, doomed to live with grief and panic instead of their children?

    "You have no choice, child. If they have a short task for you, you may perhaps return home some day. It is for the Masters and the Oracle to decide."

    "I've heard about Oracles," said Adam enthusiastically.

    "I don't think reading Percy Jackson counts this time," I said to him quietly. He ignored me. 

    "All this because he picked up a rock?!" Listen, I hadn't meant to yell at the mushroom-monkey-men. But fear, anger, and hysteria sometimes decide to plunk you in the passenger seat in life, and you find yourself in the midst of losing your crap. It was of course a mistake to give way, for the mushroom-monkey-men did not take kindly to hostility. 

    "Rock? You have an honour bestowed upon you that many hope for, train for, live for for their entire lives, and this is the gratitude you can muster? No. No, child. You will be grateful. You will fulfil your quest, or whatever the oracle and council see fit to shoulder you with." The hissing was awful - not quite a full whisper, or a rasp, but not really a voice either. It was like nails on a chalkboard, and made me want to punch the creature in his stupid head. His eyes were boring into mine now, beady, milky purple eyes that looked like they contained galaxies of their own but also cataracts.

    "For now, we shall keep you away from here, so we can work." And with that the being led us back off the bridge down the hall a little ways, seeming to be deciding which door to open. 

    "Can we at least get a room with a window?" Adam said, with the hope of a child asking to open just one present on Christmas Eve. "I've never seen space before, not like this." 

    "Indeed, you should become acquainted with it," said the being, seeming to weigh Adam's comment quite heavily. 

    He finally selected a door, and we were told to wait in a little chamber with a window instead of an outside wall. I barely took note of the fact that despite being on a soup-can-space-ship the table and chairs and solitary lamp looked like they were from ikea. 

    Instead, I went immediately and wordlessly to the window, with Adam right beside me. We were floating through a sea of stars. That was the only way I knew how to describe it. They were above us, below us, behind us, in front of us, to the side...engulfing the very matter in which we existed. They shone, while seeming to give off very little actual light. They twinkled, various specks of silver and yellow and blue and purple, and despite my lack of interest in science fiction movies that Adam loved, I finally understood why he loved the night sky. It seemed to suggest infinity, possibility, both hope and despair, everything and nothing. And it was beautiful. 

    There was a knocking at the door, but I couldn't turn around to see who was coming in. The knocking continued, but my vision was blurring at the edges. The stars faded from view, and so did the window. 

    It was all black and blurred, and still the knocking continued.

    "Emma, come on, come out of there. It's unlocked." 

    I didn't remember the alien knowing my name. The blackness was everywhere. I couldn't see. I felt my head lightly rolling against something, some kind of hard surface. 

    "Emma, are you still in there? Open the door." 

    I lifted my head, and opened my eyes. I was laying on the floor of Adam's treehouse, where he had locked me in the night before. I was clutching the white moonrock he'd found – i remembered now. My stubbornness had won out, and I'd stayed the night in the fort. His stubbornness had won out in that he'd left me there, but at least he'd slept in a comfortable bed. 

    Next to me on the ground was an empty can, one from what we called our "rations" or emergency store of food that wouldn't really go bad if left in a treehouse. 

    Apparently I'd treated myself to cold, canned mushroom soup for dinner.

                                                   ***************

Fun prompt from theprose.com: “that time you were abducted” posted on Prose in their challenge section :) Was in the mood for sci-fi today :P

** also, ignore the fact that I used the name Adam in my last story too, lol. I didn’t realize until I finished writing this, and did not have the required gusto to go back and fix it. :)))))

[humanlyimprobable]

ok so im watching shane dawson’s video about eugenia cooney and i guess its helped me realize some things about my own weight? and mental health around it? im gonna put it under a read more so as not to accidentally trigger anyone hopefully, just know that nothings too severe, this is just some stuff i didn’t notice that i wanna get better with. 

ok so, for most of my life i’ve always been an incredibly skinny, small person. to the point where it’s the main comment i’ve recieved through out my entire life. “you’re so skinny!” “you’re skin and bone!” “you need to eat!” “you’re tiny!” and the like. my weight’s always been really down there, for most of my childhood i was in the 50s pound wise. when i was at camp as a kid two counsellors discovered they could play catch with me thats how small i was. and this stuff has been 99% of my entire life. the only time it wasnt this way was when i was a literal toddler and still had a lot of baby fat to the point that my sister would call me santa claus cus my belly stuck out, which i didn’t mind, in fact i actively enjoyed it because santa claus is the best hes just a sweet generous old guy who give magical presents on christmas whats not to love? 

anyways, im 18 and im in the 90s weight wise today. the most i have ever weighed in my entire life was just barely over 100 pounds. i still receive lots of comments about how tiny i am, to the point that most people dont take me seriously when i say things like “im gaining weight” or “my hips and thighs are bigger then the rest of me”. 

idk. moving on to the food related stuff i guess, ‘m a super picky eater, there are a lot of foods that i just straight up cant eat cus theyre so gross it can be physically painful sometimes? other then that though i do genuinely love food. food is amazing and wonderful and if i had the energy and not germaphobia i would be cooking all the time because i just love food so much, and i love to experiment some times, i like trying new recipes, i love adding new things to recipes and seeing how it turns out. but uh, growing up my dad was very strict about food. if it was on your plate you had to eat all of it. no matter what it was. and this was awful for me, especially as an undiagnosed autistic person. i hated a lot of foods that ended up on my plate, and i had so many meltdowns at the dinner table. i still panic today at the thought of wasting anything, even when im genuinely full or have no use for something or hate something. i still panic because of how guilty he made me feel. and its made me scared to try completely new things. 

but then there are other issues. germaphobia, general pickiness, lack of energy, so on that makes eating really hard for me sometimes. for those who dont know, my mom is a building manager, she is on call 24/7 pretty much, and she’s out most of the day. i feel bad admitting this but my mom is the main way i get food because my executive dysfunction, germaphobia, and fatigue issues make it so that the only things i can really feed myself are normally things like pizza pockets, rice cups, and cup noodles or ready made snacks like scones. i used to eat microwave meals for almost every meal of the day but i don’t want to live like that i want to eat real food, so i tried to cut down on it. everybody always talked about how bad they were for me so i tried to stop but its kind of left me in a worse off position considering the things i mainly eat nowadays (cup noodles are way worse for you then frozen spaghetti) but im scared to go back to the meals i ate before because im scared of being judged again. i wake up and maybe have a small snack if im able to tide me over till mom gets home and i can have something like a burger. 

but thats the problem. mom is out most of the day. from the time i wake up to the time mom is able to take the time to help me get actual food is at least around 5 hours or so, and thats a long time to go. not to mention that after work shes so tired and exhausted that i feel bad just asking for her help to get food. by the time her work is done all she wants and what she needs is to go to bed but if she does that before helping me then i might go without supper.

then there are other issues. i mentioned before how 99% of my life i’ve always been a very skinny tiny person, and thats kind of something that i was known for for multiple times in my life. im always the tiniest weighs the least of my friend groups. and im kind f scared of gaining weight because of that. that time  that i mentioned earlier where i was above 100lbs? it was scary. it was getting harder to recognize my body. i’ve almost always been able to see my ribs, but it was getting harder and harder to see them. my pants started getting too tight. and i was scared. i’ve lost other important parts of my identity before and it hurts. it hurts to go through that kind of identity crisis. and im scared of having another one. 

ive always been told that i should be proud of how i look, because im conventially attractive in a lot of ways. but im not. this might sound stupid but its hard. i want to gain weight i want to loook different, be different! but. im scared. im scared of being seen as gross in any way. even f its not true at all. im scared of people seeing me differently. i’ve worked so hard to be who i am today, and i want to work even harder to be who i really want to be. i was trained into a lot of things that people know me as. and some of it is purely automatic at this point. to the extent that there are some things that i physically am almost completely unable to break out of. i want to change those. i really really do. i want to change so much. but im scared. ik i’ve said that a lot but i am. who will i be? who would people see me as? how would i function? i dont know. i really dont. 

it actually makes me really uncomfortable when people talk about how skinny i am. i dont care as much about my height, though itd be nice to reach some higher selves i actually really like that part of myself. the weight is different though. its such a complex relationship that even this crazy long vent isnt an accurate way to sum everything up. im proud of it in a way, its something im known for, it makes me feel unique, and it is something unique about me right now. but in another way, i hate it. it makes other people see me as weak, defenseless, so on. it makes me a target of creepy men. its a product of abuse and disabillity in part. it contributes to my dysphoria. it contributes towards people not taking me seriously. its dominated part of my sense of identity in a way that i hate. 

and thats what the eugenia video helped me realize. i might not’ve caught any of this if it wasnt for that video. it helped me see that unhealthy feelings about this stuff doesnt need to be/start as this crazy severe thing. there have been times when i legitamately have thought “maybe its good i haven’t been eating much lately” and i didn’t catch just how potentially dangerous those thoughts were until now. and i cannot express how thankful i am to shane and eugenia for helping me recognize that. i want to work on eating more. as best as im able. i want to work on gaining weight. i want to be better. and im gonna try to be.