I started a new job (construction project management) about 3 months ago and it hasn't gone as planned at all. I feel like an inconvenience for everyone here and I'm starting to question why I was hired to begin with.
My previous job was at a call center and I eventually quit on the spot, because the job was intensely stressful and I hated every waking second of it. It was at that point I figured I should look into the trades, but also somehow manage to utilize my degree (which is econ). Found this job through a staffing agency (mistake #1) and was hired as temp-to-perm. I came into this completely green and was only hired based on my eagerness to learn. I was really excited as this field interested me and there is a lot of traveling (site visits, etc.).
So far there has been absolutely no training whatsoever, despite being told time after time that there is a heavy learning curve. Wasn't really surprised as most companies couldn't careless about training at all, but project management is a lumbering beast and I've been given literally no work or guidance.
What really pissed me off was when my boss angrily told me "I need to be participating and act more engaged here" a few weeks ago. She then begrudgingly tossed me yet another 500 page manual to look at and just left the office.
90% of my "training" has been self-taught, and much of it has started to click, but again - I haven't been given any work whatsoever despite my attempts to do. I'm shadowing a project manager and he's very abrasive, impatient and constantly overwhelmed with his own work.
I routinely ask if there is any work I can do and the majority of the time I get "Sorry, nothing right now" or "I'm too busy, I don't have time." So I end up just reading the material or counting inventory.
The turning point for me though was on Thursday, when my boss basically said I'm useless and should be in the warehouse instead. I just said "...oh... okay" and went on with my day. She also proceeded to complain about how no one wants to work anymore and at least I'm willing to show up and learn the material.
I feel like a gopher at this point. I should have realized this as this company seems to almost exclusively hire temp workers, which I find strange. I make 17 an hour and I'm about to throw in the towel and go back to my old job (if I can, hell I don't know).
What should I do?

Critical role is an enigma. In the tabletop RPG (TTRPG) community, “the bigger they are, the harder they fall” is a fact of life. TTRPGs are a very lucrative industry, and the demand for new games, books, and shows provides plenty of opportunities for bad actors. From Satine Phoneix to Adam “forced robo orgasm” Koebel, it’s normal for this week’s darling to become next week's pariah (almost always for good reason). By that logic CR’s meteoric rise and near decade-long reign means we’re due to find out Mercer binds the souls of orphans to his dice. Until that day, while CR hasn’t stirred up drama, it’s played a (Critical) Role in several tales. Critical Role is basically the NBA of ttrpgs, and a lot of people try their damndest to get a piece of the pie.
.
In that vein, three people have most famously wrecked their own careers trying to cash in on CR. The first two are well known, namely the dragonborn sorcerer Orion “I want to do four things” Acaba, and former Talks Machina host (current full-time piece of shit) Brian W. Foster. However, in the background, a third career was also ended by Critical Role, or more specifically the influencer's obsession with it. This is the tale of FreckledHobo, the TiktoTer who tried to harpoon the white whale of Critical Role, and ended up being dragged under the water.
Welcome... to Critical Role
As they put it, Critical Role is “a bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors” who “sit around and play Dungeons and Dragons”, but they are truly so much more.
Started in 2016 by a group of some of the most iconic voice actors in anime, video games, and just general nerd media, the group's in-game chemistry, dedication to roleplaying, and just fun atmosphere took them from a subsidiary of Geek and Sundry to an empire. They have their own TV show, partnerships with major ttrpg companies including the publisher of D&D, Wizards of the Coast, and their own upcoming set of games. And from what we can tell, it couldn’t have happened to a better group of people. As a company and as a cast, CR has a long history of supporting various charities. Anecdotes from fans depict them as nothing but kind, friendly people. Don’t get me wrong, there are critiques to be levied against them about their rather aggressive fanbase and the fact their all-white party is now playing in a SWANA-inspired continent written by a white man, but it’s more things you find out over time than are warned about. When the only hobby drama that actually involves them is about playing a crappy corporate oneshot or ones where they sound like the victims you know they’ve done well.
This is all to emphasize that Critical Role is big and nearly blemish free, so any attempt to come at them best come correct, or you risk dealing with a massive company and an incredibly rabid fanbase. FreckledHobo was not correct.
Who is Freckled Hobo, and what is tiktok?
Katie Ford (aka Freckled Hobo) is technically still an influencer on the video-sharing app TikTok. TikTok is known for two things generally: The diversity/strangeness of its content, and its incredibly detailed algorithm. By interacting with a handful of videos it’s able to create a feed not only specific to your tastes but also sets you up to connect with like-minded people. This leads to incredibly tight-knit communities connected by their passions, which are generally known as ___tok, such as cooktok, booktok, kinktok, or the one we’ll be looking at here, D&Dtok. While this is appealing because it allows influencers to find and build networks with other influencers, it also means drama can never be contained to one part of the community. If anything goes down, the entire community of influencers, and the millions of collective followers, will know every detail in less than 24 hours. This means you’re one good video from skyrocketing to fame, and one bad video from complete collapse.
Freckledhobo belonged to D&Dtok. She rose to stardom by making content about her experiences playing D&D, doing skits to lip-synced audio, having immaculate makeup and cosplay, and generally being a bubbly, fun personality. It’s not an overstatement to say she was the biggest ttrpg influencer on the app, with over 1.2 million followers at the time of the drama. Through her own actual play on Twitch Dragons and dreaming, she was already well on her way to becoming a star of the ttrpg world in her own right. At least, until she decided her rise wasn't happening fast enough.
Aside: TikTok
As you’d expect, much of what transpired with this event happened on TikTok. TikTok’s horrible search algorithm, ease of purging videos, and Freckledhobos own efforts to drown out the controversy and flood her feed have made it impossible to find much of the initial creator response or to even find the video that kicked this off. It’s led to a situation that pretty much looks like that scene in south park, as you can find a ton of videos in response to what she said, but you can’t actually find the videos they’re referring to. This unfortunately means a lot of this will be “just take my word for it”. Instead of just linking random clips I’m able to find, below are three best collections of content from the event
Here is google doc with transcript of several of the tiktoks and their comment sections
Here is a video with some of the deleted tiktoks
Here is an article summarizing what happened with a handful of quotes
The Claim
In late June 2021, Freckledhobo published a TikTok, but there was no silly audio, no cosplay, and no jokes. It was her, sitting in front of (we guess) her house, and on the verge of tears (I would link it but the video itself seems to have been scrubbed too thoroughly for me to find). With a sigh, she began to explain how she believed that Opal, the human warlock with silvery hair played by Aimee Carrero in the recently released Exandria Unlimited:Kymal, was a stolen copy of her own character, Opal, also a human warlock with silvery hair in the aforementioned actually play.
Over a series of videos, she detailed her evidence for the claim. The full transcripts are in the document above, but it boils down to her belief that the D&D creator community is incredibly small and with her million tiktok followers, she must be big enough for her and Opal to be known about. The actual play itself has a whopping 500 followers, and this event was actually the first time I at least had heard about FreckledHobo. She cited her playlist of Opal cosplays as the method by which Carero discovered her character, seemingly pulling it from her TikToks. On the right of the photo here is Opal's character art. Here is Freckledhobo in her Opal Cosplay.
She laid out what she felt must be done. She had reached out to Critical Role's legal team and threatened legal action because (*check notes*) someone was playing a similar character to her. She was, however, amicable. She was willing to “settle” for something she felt would be beneficial to both of them: a guest cast role on Critical Role.
As I write this out, I need to specify that this was not a joke misconstrued by a defensive fanbase. She was not attempting to start some light ribbing she was hoping to use to build up a rapport. She seemed to fully believe her character had been stolen, and that she was providing a respectful compromise.
She would eventually say she was given an “ultimatum” from CR’s legal team and “chose to walk away”, and end this by plugging her current actual play, where Opal would be given a “makeover to look like more of an individual”. There are various videos interspersed and after this, but these are the key ones to understand what’s going on. It should also be noted that throughout this entire event, CR never put out any statements, meaning she’s the only source we have for any conversation.
Putting the Critical in Critical fail
Of course, nobody supported her, especially when she stated what she wanted in compensation. The connections between her character and Aimee’s Opal were, to say the least, light. The concept of a gem aestheticized character wasn’t exactly groundbreaking, and there was evidence that Carero had started working on the character before Freckledhobo. The only strength to her claim was the fact that the profile art for the two characters was similar, both dark-skinned women with silvery hair. However, this is where the problems started not only for FreckledHobo, but her entire actual play cast. As it was the crux of the evidence, people began to question why Opal's profile, and the profiles for much of her cast, left their artists uncredited. It would eventually be discovered that not only Opals but all of their primary artwork, including work used for merchandise, was either traced over or directly ripped from the internet without crediting the artists. Her justification was, in short “they wouldn’t be online if they cared about compensation or credit”.
At the same time another creator CertifiableNerd, someone who had played with FreckledHobo previously came forward saying Freckledhobo was rude in the campaigns she’d played with them, forcing specific character classes and alignment, lying about paying players, forcing players to purchase/make cosplays of characters for games that weren’t even off the ground, and guilting someone for not playing a session when they had a family emergency because they’d be “disappointing fans”. She also would privately claim she had played D&D with Matthew Mercer and Marisha Ray, two founding members of Critical Role, and that they said she was not “special” enough to even play a guest role on CR. I’m more writing about this because it transpired than because it had an effect because none of these details were levied when most people spoke about this. Opal was more than enough to sink this ship.
You see, Freckledhobo had made her fame within the modern niche of D&D players, which is predominantly made up of artists, POC or active allies, and Critical Role fans. Accusing a POC Critical role cast member (who had already been dealing with a lot of issues as a first-time player) of theft, accusing the community of reverse racism, and stealing art was a perfect storm of things to piss them off. It didn’t help that her response was all of this was to release a TikTok saying she expected her “fellow nerds” to have her back while she attempted to bully the Ke=eanu Reeves of D&D into giving her a guest spot. Her entire following turned against her, and her DM promptly quit, ending her own actual play. Other creators either spoke out against her or shut her out, putting her out of favor with the algorithm. In the span of 10 days, Freckledhobo went from an influencer darling on her way to at worst whatever the modern equivalent of Attack the Show is to a toxic personality that most of the community wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
To get an idea of how badly she’d poisoned the well, a year later when it turned out she and several others had been invited to participate in the same event, the other creators had to release public apologies and still faced heavy scrutiny for months after.
Post campaign wrapup
I often struggle writing the endings of these things because I like to write about large-scale events liable to have ripple effects for years to come. That is not true for FreckledHobo. FreckledHobo's career is dead and will stay dead. You see, the goal of TikTok is to translate your fame to a field that will actually pay your bills, and she pretty much shut down that path entirely. In retrospect, if she hadn’t fucked up her trajectory, she would probably have had that guest cast role a year later or had them on her show. Connie Chang and Haley Whipjack, TikTok influencers whose combined follow count is a third of Frecklehobo’s, now play pretty frequently with D&D juggernauts like Travis McElroy and Brennan Lee Mulligan. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me if she would have gotten herself a cameo in Honor among Thieves the recent D&D movie.
Instead, she is the only example I’ve ever seen of cancel culture being successful.
It has now been 2 years since this all happened, and if you didn’t look closely, you’d think things are fine. She’s even grown from 1.2 to 1.6 million followers! However, followers are to TikTok what views are to modern Twitter: they don’t mean anything. Views are the stronger metric of regular success on the site, and her videos don’t even crack 10,000, less than 1% of her total following. She attempted to re-enter the public eye through further controversy a-la a very anti-semitic goblin cosplay a year later, but it wasn’t enough to bring her back to the heights she once reached. She’s stepped away from D&D, now only doing cosplays that are absolutely D&D characters. She says she’s focusing on an acting career which must be going great as sometime between the fiasco and now, she started an onlyfans(NSFW Link). That announcement, which is pinned to the top of her feed for maximum coverage and has her shaking her ass in a bikini, has 200k views(NSFW Link). The pinned video next to it, of her (fully clothed) in horror makeup from her heyday, has 90 million.

I only seen bits here & there back when it was on tv but never got into the show but I really wanna get into it but want a golden episode to bring me in.

Motivation : Body Swap Motive
I think I deleted nearly half of the rules of Danganronpa.
It is worth mentioning that:

• role is random
• No Monokuma that everyone hates as host, replaced by a character I made myself
• No motivation, instead unnatural events
• there may not even be a mastermind in it
• The moderator has no intention of interfering with the students
• There is still killing, there is still despair, but despair is not the goal of this 'game'
• ... (and possibly others, but I can't think of any)

​
I modeled this fan motivation by using a random roulette to draw 10 people. Also I plan to only write stories from when the motive is revealed to when someone dies.
The reason for only writing ten people is: this motivation will be more complicated if there are too many people, but it should be relatively easy for the ten people selected with distinctive personalities.
​
●In response to motivational needs (called unnatural events in this story), if A becomes B, it is shown as
A(B) :
If you're wondering, read on and you'll know what I'm talking about.
​
Character :

• Leon Kuwata (Main POV.Of course, by lottery)
• Kiyotaka Ishimaru
• Kyoko Kirigiri (Dr1)
• Kazuichi Soda
• Chiaki Nanami
• Sonia Nevermind (Dr2)
• Rantaro Amami
• Kokichi Oma
• Angie Yonaga
• Himiko Yumeno (V3)

...
The explanation at the beginning of the story: Leon, the Ultimate Baseball Star, wakes up in an unknown place with 15 other students Leon doesn't know. Here they are trapped, in a seemingly abandoned town center. A translucent wall traps them here. The center of this small town should be the place with the most resources, which may be one of the reasons why they are there. They were told the rules of this place by an artificial intelligence named Kokokuka (they can't attack Kokokuka, not because the attack will kill, but because Kokokuka is a projection, they can't touch it, and they can't find the projected place)
"You have to kill to be the only way out of here, but you have to participate in death debates, go undetected and be voted to get out of here. If you choose the right person, he will die; if you vote for the wrong person, that person will die, and the murderer can leave. Every time someone dies, no matter what the ending, new places open up and the better your chances of finding the truth, that's your second condition for leaving. This is the rule of this place. And, during this time you will encounter various events that may or may not entice you to kill, I call it unnatural events, when all the survivors are in the same place, I will detail when you encounter that event. As for any potential regulations here, I can tell you that there are none, but I suggest you not go out at night. After 10 o'clock, it is safe indoors, but not necessarily outdoors."
It's been a while since they woke up from this strange place, and besides the 10 mentioned above, the other six... are dead. It could be that one of them has a reliable [detective], or it could be that they don't want to kill innocent people, so they help the case as much as possible, and that's why no one has escaped from here yet.
They once asked Kokokuka a question: "Are we in a virtual world? Because that wall is not something that would appear in real life..." Kokokuka's answer was: "This is the real world, the unreal real world ."
Note: In this story, everyone actually knows the rules of this killing game, under normal circumstances. Because this is a story that happened after Dr1, 2 and V3, but they are the same age. That is, they know Momokuma. But those three killing games had a very vague impression on them. No one remembered that they killed or were killed, and even if they remembered, they were not among them. Everyone remembers people differently, which leads them to think they're in 16 different killing games.
Now, the story begins!
Midnight. Leon lay on the bed, thinking about everything that had happened.(For me, if I don't explain the previous story well, I will be very sorry.)
Leon: "Damn it, someone died again yesterday, what the hell is going on?"
Leon: "In my understanding, even if it is a killing game, three people will not be killed by the same person at the same time! This is because the damn Kokokuka didn't set the rules!...Although it is so, Kyoko said that the two died The cases are all because of those unnatural events...otherwise no one would die at all...why..."
Yesterday, Leon made a friend and they swore to escape together, but, he died.Not just him, but many others.
If there were no unnatural events... would none of this happen? But it's impossible...
Leon fell asleep sad and angry. Nothing should happen in a short time, right? Leon thought. But this place doesn't seem to give them a chance to rest at all.
Seven forty the next day. Leon woke up, but normally he didn't need to get up until after eight o'clock. Eight o'clock in the morning, this is the time they should have woken up in the previous killing game. But since Kokokuka doesn't call them and has no rules, it doesn't matter what time they sleep. However, to avoid accidents, Ultimate Moral Compass usually wakes everyone up during this time, and his voice is very loud, which is not a problem.
"Had a bad dream..." Leon thought, rolling over and looking at the clock. (Is that clock weird?) "Wait a minute, that guy Taka is coming to call us, alas... I can't sleep, let's get up and wash up first."
Leon got up, wait, what was he wearing? Leon looked at what he was wearing now in disbelief. A princess outfit.
Leon: "AHAHAH!!! WHAT THE FUCK!?...HOW IS THIS!?!?"
A crisp female voice sounded. He knew the dress and heard the voice. To be precise, very familiar. Sonia Nevermind, Ultimate Princess, the girl who met in this killing game, the same age. She's cheerful and well-mannered because she's a princess, right?
Undoubtedly, he became Sonia.
Of course Leon didn't believe it, he rushed into the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and there was a panic-looking "Sonia" inside.
Leon(Sonia): ". . ."
Leon(Sonia): "Damn."
Leon screamed inwardly. It took him a while to get used to not having pants and being a girl.
Now, Leon was faced with a challenge. He had to tie up Sonia's hair, which, as he remembered, was partly braided and the rest flowed slightly to the left. And she has a green and black ribbon in her hair. It wasn't hard to find that ribbon, the hard part was tying it. After a while, Leon finally fixed his hairstyle, which was simpler than imagined.
??? : "Everyone! Time to wake up!"
Another female voice rang out, it's eight o'clock. The voice sounded familiar, but she didn't seem to speak like that. The voice is familiar, but the tone has changed.
Leon(Sonia): "No way...everyone..."
Leon opened the door cautiously and looked out. He saw a familiar figure, it was Kyoko Kirigiri. Kyoko Kirigiri, Ultimate Detective, is a clever and mysterious girl, thanks to her talent, we were able to find the killers... Now, Leon was looking at Kyoko, watching her trying to wake everyone up with her throat, and Kyoko didn't notice him.
Leon(Sonia): "Although I have a bottom line in my heart, I still can't be sure if other people are like me..." Leon tried to pose Sonia's usual graceful movements, which was very difficult because Leon NOT a princess.
Leon pretends to be nonchalant and walks out of his room, well, it should be Sonia's room. And he just ran into Kyoko. (Is this just a coincidence?)
Kyoko(?): "Good morning! Ms. Sonia!" Suddenly, Kyoko(?) paused, "Would you agree...I call you Ms. Sonia?" It seems that Taka has indeed become Kyoko, Leon thought.
"I don't disagree, but I do mind."
Leon(Sonia): "I think I know who you are..." Kyoko(?): "Rea...really?" This was probably the most surprising Leon had ever seen Kyoko, well, if she was Kyoko.
Kyoko(?): "..." Kyoko's face seemed a little red. Kyoko(?): "Okay, okay! I'm Taka! Are you satisfied?"
Leon(Sonia): "Ah! Uh...I didn't mean to...I apologize if I upset you. And...I'm...Leon." Leon found himself going a little too far.
Taka(Kyoko): "Well, I'm not used to it yet, I'm too impulsive. But, why is it like this?" Leon(Sonia): "Needless to say, there must be some incident." Taka(Kyoko): "Then we Should we meet up with the others first? So that AI can explain it to us..." Leon(Sonia): "Maybe? But it might take some time for others to get used to it."
Leon(Sonia): "By the way, have you been to other places?" Taka(Kyoko): "Oh, yes, uh, did I mention that the place where Sonia live is the last place I came to?"
Actually, they don't live in the same hotel, some are in the residential area, some are in the hotel. Since Sonia's hotel is farthest from where Taka lives, when Taka comes to wake Sonia up, it's normal , everyone else is awake. And now Leon is Sonia.
Leon(Sonia): "You haven't met anyone else?" Taka(Kyoko): "Yes...but I promise, my voice will be enough to wake them up." They arrived at the restaurant where they usually gather.
Empty.
Leon(Sonia): "What do you think, how long do we have to wait here for all to arrive?" Taka(Kyoko): *sigh* "Hard to say."
...
Leon(Sonia): "Hey, Taka, let me ask you, is the talent we have now still there? I mean, is the talent we have now the original one, or the current body?" Taka(Kyoko): " I don't know. " Leon(Sonia): "..." "It doesn't matter, just try it and find out!"
Leon left Taka, and when he came back, he had an extra tennis ball in his hand. Taka was still wondering, but Leon had already assumed the pitching posture of a baseball pitcher. Taka(Kyoko): "Hey you... what are you---" The tennis ball flew past Taka at an extremely fast speed, and the air current caused by the tennis ball blew up Taka's long lavender hair. (There will be a mismatch between the appearance and the name, that is.)
Taka was shocked.
Taka(Kyoko): "..." "So fast...Wait, Leon! Do you know if you do this, you will attack other people? Please stop your behavior!" Leon(Sonia): "Sorry~ But I can be sure that the straight ball I throw will not deviate from the target by more than five centimeters!" "One more thing I noticed, you know? I threw that ball with all my might." Taka(Kyoko): "Of course...so it's fast... " Leon(Sonia): "No, it's too slow, my top speed is 160 km/h speed pitch, I can see it." Taka(Kyoko): "Hmm... back to the question you just asked me, I have an idea." Leon(Sonia): "What?"
Taka(Kyoko): "I think we may have two talents now, but both are weakened. Um...let's say you're a football player and you become a helicopter pilot. You can play football because you remember the skills and tricks of playing football, but due to physical factors and other reasons, you can't perfectly show your original talent. And you are a helicopter pilot now. When you come into contact with things related to flying a helicopter, you will find that you are somewhat familiar with this thing, so you can fly a helicopter. But if it is a proportion, the original talent will remain more. I guess."
Leon(Sonia): *puff* Leon laughed. Taka(Kyoko): "Uh? So...so...what's up? I...just speaking my mind! I'm just guessing..." He was a little flustered. Leon(Sonia): "It's okay, it's okay, what you said is very reasonable, very reasonable. I just see Kyoko in you." Taka(Kyoko): " ? "
...
Taka(Kyoko): *Walking around* "I already went to call them! Why aren't they here yet? They're already late!!!" Leon(Sonia): "As I said, they might need a little time--" Taka(Kyoko): "It's been a long time!" Leon(Sonia): "..." *sigh*
Taka(Kyoko): "I want to find something to do..." Leon(Sonia): "I'm hungry..." Taka(Kyoko): "Oh? Uh...yes! I can...try to make breakfast for Her Majesty the Princess!" (He didn't make breakfast)Leon(Sonia): "I'm not Your Majesty...but you can call me that if you want." Taka didn't hear it. Leon(Sonia): "Taka has never been to the kitchen...But Kokokuka took a bunch of recipes before, it should be okay?"
Ten minutes later...
???: "Good morning~~~Your Majesty Sonia~~~" A high-spirited, enthusiastic and lively male voice sounded. Oh no, Leon wanted to laugh again. ???: "Oh? Is Her Majesty Sonia the only one here?" Leon(Sonia): "Ah, and Kyoko, but she went to the kitchen." Leon was holding back his laughter, he still didn't want to ruin Sonia's demeanor. ???: "Really? (she looks excited) I'm going to her!" Leon(Sonia): "Ah! Wait--" He goes. Leon(Sonia): *poof* Leon laughed again. He probably knew who he had met.
Yes, Angie is inside Taka's body.
Angie Yonaga, Ultimate Artist. She's supposed to be the most poised of them all, she almost always has excitement and a big smile on her face, and she's not afraid to die. Leon guessed she didn't care about face, because she usually came out in nothing but a white ruffled bikini top and a yellow cover-up. So Leon was a little surprised when he found that the person in front of her was Angie. He didn't expect Angie to be able to wear Taka's military-style white school uniform and black lace-up boots.
Leon(Sonia): "I think... there is a good show to watch..." Leon looks to the kitchen, and
"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
It was a very high-pitched, piercing scream.
Leon(Sonia): "Uh...?"
Looks like something happened in the kitchen.
After a while, Taka and Kyoko came out from the kitchen. The former had a big smile, while the latter had a helpless expression.
Leon(Sonia): "What happened?" Leon knew that the voice just now belonged to Taka.
Taka(Kyoko): *sigh*
--- (review) ---
Taka is in the kitchen now. Taka(Kyoko): "What am I going to make for breakfast? Well, I haven't been in the kitchen at all." Taka held a cookbook, thinking. At this time, a voice he was very, very familiar with sounded.
??? : "Kyoko~~~ you are here, right?"
Then came Taka's scream.
--- (end of review ) ---
Angie(Taka): "Sorry~ I didn't expect you to be scared so easily!"
Taka(Kyoko): "I seem to have become less courageous... Do you know that what you said just now is really scary!?"
Angie(Taka): ":)"
Oh no, I found that I typed too many things, so I gave up typing all of them before posting, because it would take a lot of time for me to type this story. This is just the beginning of this motivation, if I could I would hit it to the point where someone dies. But this will be very long, please forgive me.
As for why there is a spoiler warning at the beginning of the character introduction, because some characters have not yet appeared. :)

Plus side he is British

So I’m only up to episode 3 but I’ve noticed something that really bothers me - the double standards against men - Eg ori
I should preface this by saying he is very superficial and seems to have issues (mommy issues too)
However all the women are extremely superficial and full of their own issues, which also seem far worse than ori but yet he gets the hate cause he’s a guy. Everyone attacking his looks and putting him down on here is uncalled for.
Even the way the host was condescending when looking for his next date was unacceptable
For example Harmonie - dear god where do I start. Claims to be 44 but looks 54 and wants a 21 year old stud. She clearly mostly looks for sex only. She’s full of red flags and needs to not worry about dating but try to get her life in order. She should go to rehab
Cindy - so superficial and full of red flags. Happily wants someone up to 37 years but then claims 34 is old cos she’s not attracted to the guy. All her explanations are vague and mysteriously don’t work out (ex of 3 years “just life got in the way” to the mystery of “100 matches but yeh ..becomes zero”). Intentionally creating drama on first date, talk about being manipulative.
Just my observation

Let me begin by saying that this is my first post on this platform, and I'm unsure if I'm doing it correctly. Also, English is not my first language.
To provide some background information, I (22F) grew up in a small village with many young families. My family and neighbors have lived there for over 25 years. Our neighbors have kids around the same age as my family, so I practically grew up in two houses. The daughter (22F, let's call her Alice) and I have been friends since birth, and we were in the same class until we turned 12 years old.
Until two years ago, I suffered from an unknown chronic illness that left me with low energy and daily pain. As a result, I had to cancel many enjoyable activities. However, Alice understood, and we would spend time together in the garden or our bedrooms. Around five years ago, I started a new diet, and my health began to improve. This led to Alice and me spending more time together, going on holidays, and so on. An little side note: I work as a safety director specializing in the integration of public safety and health. This professional background has shaped my perspective, causing me to see everything in terms of risks, even outside of work.
Approximately four years ago, Alice experienced a psychosis (I hope I'm using the correct translation), which affected her deeply. After a few months, she was allowed to reduce her medication and start therapy to aid her recovery. Unfortunately, her first experience with a psychologist was negative, making her hesitant to engage in the healing process. A year later, it became apparent that she had abruptly stopped taking her medication instead of gradually tapering off. Additionally, she had only seen her psychologist a few times over a span of six months. As a result, a year after her first psychosis, she experienced a second episode and required hospitalization. The diagnosis was psychosis affective bipolar, which involves severe psychosis during manic episodes. She spent over ten weeks in a mental hospital, receiving only urgent care. I visited her during that time, and it broke my heart to see her. She spoke as if she were possessed, and when she looked at me, it felt as if she was seeing through me.
Upon returning home, she needed to begin the recovery process. Having witnessed her previous episode, I spoke to her extensively about the benefits of undergoing therapy and finding a good therapist. In the first few weeks back, she showed interest in learn more, asking me ton of questions. However, after a few weeks, her mood shifted, and she no longer wanted to discuss it. She started saying things like, "I don't need to process what happened" or "I can reduce my medication, so I'm better." I didn't always listen to her since she had been the one supporting me when I was ill, and now it was my turn. Her family had also been discussing the things she had done during her psychosis, of which she was very ashamed, yet she refused any help. She began repressing everything, and for two years, it appeared as though she was doing well.
Nine months ago, while we were at a party, I noticed a sudden change in her posture and attitude. From that point, I witnessed a gradual deterioration. I attempted to talk to her about her medication and whether she was still looking for a coach or therapist, her responses made me doubt if she was getting worse. For example, Alice follows a diet similar to mine, and during our outings, I realized she was no longer following it. Whenever I tried to address it, she skillfully avoided suspicion, by saying exactly the things I would say when I don't want to follow my diet. A month ago, I was conversing with her mom, who claimed Alice was doing exceptionally well. I mentioned that I noticed she had even abandoned her diet, to which her mom was really confused. It turned out Alice had been lying to everyone about her progress.
Then, two weeks ago it happened. Her mom called me in a panic, informing me that Alice had run away. I chased after her and found her a few blocks away, barely clothed and completely unaware of it. She was completely disoriented. On the same day, she was hospitalized. Apparently, she had stopped taking her medication over six months ago. I have visited her a few times, and she was slowly improving. This time, her mom and I are in more frequent contact, which made me realize that once again, she is deceiving everyone around her. She told me that her family were devils and that she wasn't allowed to see her little brother. Yet she managed to convince the staff that she had no delusions and expressed a strong desire to go home. And as you might guess, the staff discharged her and sent her home. Naturally, her mom was overjoyed, believing that her daughter's release from the mental hospital signified a complete recovery.
I understand that I don't have the power to dictate what a family should do, but it hurts me to see Alice in this state. It hurts to witness a family (that I love as my own) like this and not making an effort to improve. It hurts when they view mental health solely as something that can be fixed with medication, disregarding the importance of mental support as long as medication is not needed.
Now, here are my struggles: Alice has younger brothers and sisters who have been exhibiting behavioral issues at school since she was hospitalized. It also seems that her parents are unaware of the fact that Alice still has a long road to recovery ahead of her. Whenever I discuss the importance of therapy and the healing process with them, they don't seem to grasp the necessity of it, not just for Alice but also for themselves and their other children.
So here are my concerns:

1. How can I continue to support Alice and ensure she receives the help she needs?
2. How can I help Alice's family recognize the significance of mental health and the process of healing for a condition like Alice's? Or how can I make them listen?
3. I'm afraid that Alice won't change and will continue manipulating people (in retrospect, she has done this even before her diagnosis). Consequently, I don't know how long I can keep this up.

I would appreciate some guidance on these matters.

So it was 10 of May since we last talked face to face. I don't know what to say or how to feel about my ex. We had a relationship for a year. One of the main reasons that we broke up is that she didn't gave me the love or attention that I thought I deserved. The main reason of our fights was her past relationships. I felt betrayed and useless. I will give you just one example of her hypocritical behaviour and you can decide who was wrong and why. So, as you may expect after a 1 year of relationship I asked her for a nude picture and she said to me that she can't send me because she wants me to enjoy her whenever we are together and she doesn't want me to get stuck into her nudes. She thought that I would get bored of her if I saw her nudes. I respected that and moved on. After couple of months, she was showing me her old pictures from highschool etc (from her laptop) and accidentally she showed me her picture from last year with her ex boyfriend. As you may expect I started yelling and cursing at her (we were facetiming) and she just start crying and the only thing that she said was that she have totally forgotten that the picture was there, she thought that she had removed all of her pictures with her ex. I didn't believe it of course and I just start asking her more and more questions and then when I asked her "so you didn't send to any of your ex your naked picture, right?" and the answer I got broke me down. She just said "no, my ex (the guy that I saw in her laptop) had my nudes, but I was so dumb and regretted that immediately" I got angry and start yelling again at her and said "so you are telling me that, he just asked you one fcking time for your nudes and you sent him like it was nothing and when I am asking for the same pictures for months you just telling me some bullshit excucses?". Also, she was posting him on her socials but with me she was just posting stories and whenever I was asking her the reason, she was telling me that she wants to have a private relationship. I can give you 10 more examples of bullshit like that but I don't want to bore any of you. She didn't know how to answer to my questions and just try bullshitting me and I left. She tried to contact me once and we had the same arguments again and then she just stop texting or contacting me. I don't know, I just can't believe it and I can't accept that after a year the person that I thought respects me and loves me ended up a fraud like this. I am not going to lie, I am checking her socials very often which I shouldn't but I can't help myself. Any advice for all of this and how can I stop thinking about her even though I know deep down I hate her and I want nothing to do with her, I still think about her. And the fact that she just doing nothing about our relationship or trying to fix things tells me more about her. I must accept she didn't give a fck about me but for some reason I can't accept it.

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New England Patriots News Link Catchup - Replacing McCourty at Safety: The Devin is in the details

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• Alexandra Francisco reports that Patriots Cheerleaders Alexa Pillsbury, Sarah Tong, Haley Schmich and Jillian Acevedo all recently earned their college degrees. Here’s what is next for them.
• Taylor Kyles shares his observations from the second OTA practice: Attendance, Marte Mapu flexes his versatility, Antonio Mafi rising quickly, More.
• Matt Dolloff spotlights 6 Patriots who stood out at the second open practice of OTAs.
• Sara Marshall (MusketFire) The 4 most impressive Patriots through OTAs (so far).
• Richie Whitt (Patriots Country) So far, so good: Christian Gonzalez impressing during OTAs.
• Tom E. Curran explains how age is a cautionary tale when discussing talented Patriots rookie Christian Gonzalez, who is only 20 years old.
• Andy Hart says Rhamondre Stevenson wants – and needs – to be ‘the guy’ for Patriots.
• Mark Daniels reports how ‘very athletic’ Keion White brings more competition for Deatrich Wise, but the veteran is taking the rookie under his wing.
• Karen Guregian writes how Kyle Dugger is hoping to be a part of the solution to replace Devin McCourty.
• Alex Barth highlights DB Jalen Mills mentioning his brief release and re-signing with the team from this past offseason. “I’m here. I’m happy. I wanted to be a Patriot. I’m here.”
• Doug Kyed explains how the Patriots seem to believe in their highest-paid undrafted free agent Malik Cunningham.
• Mike Kadlick’s Patriots Mailbag: Is it ‘put up or shut up’ time for Mac Jones?
• Chris Mason’s Patriots Mailbag: Who will start on offense under Bill O’Brien?
• Sophie Weller posts the newly announced Patriots’ preseason dates and times.
• Harrison Reno (Patriots Country) Patriots new leading contender for DeAndre Hopkins?
• Justin Leger highlights Phil Perry making a passionate pitch for the Patriots to sign star WR DeAndre Hopkins.
• Alex Barth finds DeAndre Hopkins has scheduled his first free agent meeting, with the Titans.
• Mike D’Abate (Patriots Country) Bill Belichick is apparently showing great faith in Bill O’Brien and Mac Jones to fix last season’s woes on offense.
• Nick Stevens relays ex-Patriots staffers Scott Pioli and Eric Mangini on how they feel about Mac Jones.
• Riley Sheppard (Patriots Country) ESPN NFL Insider Dan Graziano says there is pressure for New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick to win this season ... or else.
• Chris Mason reports former Patriots safety Malik Gant dies at 25, family remembers ‘valued teammate.’ /How sad.
• One Patriots Place podcast: Clare and Murph are joined by Evan Lazar to talk all things Patriots. (65 min.)
• Patriots OTA 2 practice recap: Alex Barth joins Matt McCarthy to talk all things Patriots OTA’s and what he’s seen so far. (23 min.)

Okay so umm first I'm kinda young but I want help anyways so ya. So me (14f) (I'm 13 as of writing this but my birthday is tmr soooo) is kinda getting annoyed with my best friend (14f) of 4 years. Our friendship has had a lot of ups and downs but one thing she never stopped doing was LEAVING ME OUT, it's so damn annoying but ig I got used to it. For context last year around this time she and my friend group (group of 5) kinda tried to unfriend me or whatever. So let's call my first friend Lisa(14f). Okay so Lisa and my other friend Maya(14f) were better friends then all of us because me and the other 3 would always leave the country during holidays to visit family. Ig over the holidays they got close and confided in each other abt their problems. But another thing was Maya had a crush on this boy in our class and Lisa talked to all the boys and girls bc she is very extroverted. So Maya basically asked Lisa to help her out with getting this boys attention (which i thought was useless cuz we were 12/13) But Lisa being popular or whatevr (in a class of 25 lmao) tried ot help Maya. This obviously meant a LOT OF WHISPERING... without me or the others. I mean everytime the other 2 friends left the country on holiday (they missed way more school than me lisa and maya to go to their home country) I got left out wayyy more. I kept quiet because I'm very reserved (Which is why Maya didn't ask me for help talkign to thing guy cuz she talked to more ppl than me)
So my sister is rlly popular in school and so she would talk abt me to her friends sometimes (innocently nothing bad abt me or my friends) But one day after the school field trip I got a notification from a new groupchat with the 5 of us saying that they were making a new group chat where we would be PG13 (13 yr olds talk abt some weird stuff btu not so weird btw) and wouldn't gossip in that chat. I was suprised bc like our friendgroup would be kidna weird if we chatted all... conservative? Then i was liek wtf and they got mad at me. BTW the other 2 friends were barely involved in this. Then they started to say that Lisa accidentally deleted the groupchat which made no sense bc I knew thats not how it works. I knew something was off and apparently they just thought I was a liability because my sister said smth about Maya's crush (this wasn't true because I didn't even tell my sister about it) I obviously got defensive of my sister and I got really mad at both of them for lying about deleting the chat and thinking I'm a liability to their stupid grade 7 secrets that are dumb and worthless and useless. Well Maya never apologised and Lisa did. I was still super angry at them and in the stage where I wasn't talking to them, another friend Cathy who joined 2 months ago left me alone at school with those two to got to the beach with her mom. LIEK R U SERIOUS?? IM FIGHTING WITH THEM AND NEED A FRIEND BUT U LEAVE ME TO GO TO THE BEACH??? My other friend was in her home country already. So i was basically forced to make up. But I did make better friends with other girls in my class so i has them.
Fast forward a few months. Maya, Cathy(14f) and the other girl Gina get rlly close to the point they start ignoring me and Lisa. They start getting into fashion, boys and makeup at 13 so I didn't rlly want in that. I decided to eat with the other girls for lunch and Lisa followed. So we drifted but not too much around the christmas holdiays. Maya and Lisa and I had a sleepover and the night of the sleepover they syddenly started typing on Lisa's computer completely forgetting I existed and tehy were talking abt a dog that this boy in my class got?? Well eventually I saw the chat and it was this friend group with 3 other boys in my class made because they were trying to avoid this one dude in my class. So they still hang out in that group today even thought we aren't friends anymore. the 3 of us are still in book club together but sometimes i dont really engage in convo with maya because I think she's really arrogant and not worth my time.
Well now Lisa is getting on nerves. Her and one of my very good friends haley(15f) are always exchanging secrets... no not secrets GOSSIP. Now Haley trusts me more than Lisa and I know more of Haley's secrets which I've never ever exposed. Lisa on the other hand, tells ur secret then forgets the secret and the fact she told anybody. Since I'm reserved and quiet, the only gossip I get is from my older sister and I promise not to tell anyone. So I don't even tell Lisa. Whenever the gossip gets out and I just say, "Oh ya ik abt that" Ig Lisa gets a little annoyed I don't tell her even though she would tell everyone anyways?? So she still never tells me anything. Her constant gossipy-ness is getting on my nerves and on top of that She still hangs out with that other friend group she has with Maya and the boys. They hung out today and watched the new little mermaid movie, which Lisa told me she was watching with her mom... u serious...
But also during art class this week she and Maya were talking from two different tables about what horror movie they should watch with the boys at Maya's house this weekend. Ig they changed their minds. Also I found out that they classmate I have a crush on went with them even tho he's not in my group. I'm not holding that against Lisa tho cuz no one knows I liek him and she talks to him and literally everyone. Idk I'm not being possessive of my friends or anything but... Maya has been a bad friend to Lisa too (both of the have been even worse to me especially when they left me out at school once I came back because I went to my home country when my grandfather passed away, I obviously didn't wanna talk about it but why couldn't they include me ) Maya is actually horrible and I hate her but now Lisa is getting on my nerves and I can't stand how loud and annoying and outgoing she is. Also the fact I was probably never her best friend.
Sorry for the length of this. I can give more context in the comments if u want

This show is really good. I’m enjoying the first episode. So what are you thoughts on this show.

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(Except Lane and Paris, I’ll always support them.)
All the characters are either the self-centred Gilmore girls (I still love them, but they really do have a not-like-other-girls attitude to every woman who isn’t them) or a clingy or problematic love interest (even Luke tried having a fight with 16 year old Dean!) or a one dimensional supporting character, like Louise, who is just a dumb blonde, because of course she is.
Don’t get me wrong, I adore Kirk and Babette, but I feel like they’re too one dimensional as well. Kirk has no depth, and Babette is… well, she’s Babette.
No hate to the show, though! I don’t think I’d change much - Emily and Richard needed to be bad parents to set up the Lorelais as they are, and part of the charm of the show is seeing their flaws and how they deal with them. It makes it feel real. The Stars Hollow characters (especially Taylor) are pretty one-dimensional, but the town wouldn’t be so quirky without them.

I've had depressive episodes on and off most of my life. Up until reseantly I've actually been out of depression as my life has finally fallen into place, and alot of the usual triggers for an episode have been absent in my life, on top of therapy helping with not just depression but other mental disorders, to the point I ended therapy reaching my treatment goals.
Which is why this feels so out of left field and strange to me. This time around, I still look at my life and see value. A steady job I enjoy 90% of the time, a house I own, a loving wife and adorable pets. I have an amazing social life, play DND with friends every week, and otherwise have nothing to be upset or depressed about.
Yet this beast has still chosen to show. I feel myself loosing interest in games I enjoy, including DND and art. I want to lay in bed more, and I feel the cleanliness habits I have worked hard to build beginning to fade. I feel like grabbing at water trying to keep what I have worked for so hard. The worst part is I can't find the trigger.
Usually when depression hits me, I can look inside, find the trigger, solve it, and stop an episode, something I worked with my therapist, but I cannot for the life of me find the trigger, infact I don't even feel the sad part of this episode, having nothing to attach the feeling too. There is also an underlying fear that this depression may even take away the things I do value, and I'm terrified of what that could mean.
I just hope it doesn't take my will to keep fighting before I figure out what to do.

1. I think a lot of the “love” they got on their people story because gay marriage not because of them
   
2. Zero honeymoon. You would think they would at minimum stay together when the story broke so they could post fake love photos after. But no Jessi needed to get her teeth fixed. I’m guessing the dentist gave a window for the “collab”. Collab could be. A discount but she needed to grift for the spirit airfare. Why didn’t Jenna go? She’s sooo famous but the has that hoodie to hide.
   
3. JL is not keeping these collabs fresh - she doesn’t put things she loves in her grid so these “show them some love” stuff only lasts 24 hours.
   
4. I think Amber and Tito are going to sue. The law is clear and the probably have a form.
   
5. The reporter isn’t that great either. I’m guessing she’s freelance, begging for work and did a half ass job. We won’t see stories from her again. The lack of fact checking in Jenna Jameson or mention she lost her boys or the photo of her boys isn’t on her social media.
   
6. Jessi Lawless’ pateron is falling. It was 195 last week and 143 now. I’m guessing when people living dollar to dollar see a random $5 loss to support her and no new podcast they call and cancel.
   

The people story got no new bump.

1. Jenna Jameson wearing a rainbow necklace is too funny. Quiet signal to the lgbt community but we don’t want her because her “wife” is trash and hates the Pride flag. I wonder if they look at each others content.
   
2. Where is grime?
   

Writing this in a throw away because i dont want them to see this. TW: self harm
So I've been friends with these people for almost 2 years now, but they dropped me like I was nothing. For starters they started excluding me in everything and when i bought it up to them they just told me they thought I was busy, well I wasn't. I often invited them to play but they say they're busy and then I find out later on they we're playing videogames without me. I ignored that since i didn't want to lose the only friends i had. And then later on when our school had this event that lasted a week they decided to ignore me for the entirety of it, so i did what exactly they did to me. And then they had the audacity to call me out for being a bad friendsand ignoring them, and ofc they didnt talk to me nor include me in anything. And recently one of my friends called me a slur, which i was verbally open about it being offensive. Instead of apologizing she spammed it and kept making fun of me even after i called her out on it. The rest of our friends just enabled her and defended her saying it was just for laughs and jokes. But when I called her a dumbass/dummy (as a friends obv, and we've been calling each other that since before) they took it too seriously that they didn't talk to me. This other friend betrayed my trust, i was ranting to our gc about how incompetent and disrespectful this person is and my friend showed the guy i was ranting about my rant and the whole class now hates me. I didn't show up for the class pictures nor the graduation party because i know i wont enjoy myself there. I hate them so much, they ruined highschool for me. I dont know what to do anymore. I'm sure I've done nothing wrong. They still kept being friends with this new guy who got in our friend group who would often show his self harm scars/wounds. He also harassed and pressured our friend (the racist) to date him. I'm just letting this all out because i didn't even get an explanation why they cut me off. I was there for them everytime they needed me, I dropped everything I did whenever they had a mental breakdown. I cut myself off from them now because I dont want to surround myself with lying backstabbing racist bitches. I have found better friends, but they live far away. At least they dont leave me out in anything and call me slurs or back stab me.
Sorry for the rant.

I just listened to the first episode of the My Mrs. Maisel Pod hosted by Kevin Pollak. It's a podcast intended for fans who are rewatching the series and that will proceed episode by episode, featuring interviews with the people who worked on the show. He and Luke Kirby discussed the pilot for almost 90 minutes. I've liked Pollak ever since seeing him in The Usual Suspects in 1995, in which he played a tough guy thief who was funny. He was much more apologetic than I was expecting; that was probably because he's still getting his feet as an interviewer on the show. Kirby was amusing and clever and they both talked interestingly about minute details that I'd forgotten or never noticed.
If you have questions about why certain plot decisions were made, this would be a good place to ask. They welcome emails with questions, reviews, and comments. Notes that are read on the show will earn the fans prizes like an autographed script or a book by the costume designer. Send them to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]). Spreading the word by social media is also appreciated.
I listened to it on Spotify, but it's available on other major platforms.

There seems to be a big significance with the trees. Does anyone have any ideas on what is going on?
Here's a few points and observations:

1. Victor is studying the tree's and marking them and finds out that they are moving?
2. The Trees seem to be changing and its revealed that the trees don't change seasonally in Fromsville like in the real world.
3. Everyone sees a fallen tree that is blocking the rode when they become trapped in Fromsville.
4. On the shows Poster with Boyd the streets sort of look like they are in the formation of a tree.
5. There are some trees that contain portals that people can use to teleport randomly throughout Fromsville.
6. The two symbols that keep on popping up sort of look like they could be trees without branches, one of them looks like a fallen tree. Could these symbols that are popping up signify the whole seasonal change of the trees?
7. Smiley's insides seemed wooden or almost like Fungi or mushroom like in the autopsy episode and their nails seem almost wooden? Could the Monsters be some sort of tree sprite that can communicate with the trees and thats how they know so much about the residents?

Maybe the trees are listening?
Am I missing any points? What are your thoughts, ideas and theories?

I don't watch the show, but it just seems weird why people want to go on national television to do a DNA test, argue and make fools of themselves when that could simply be done at a local hospital and in a courtroom.

A while ago, I posted a test that was to determine what kind of writer someone is, based on what part of the “modernist” spectrum they fall into. Part of the reason why I did this was to see how much I understand about the subject matter, since I will always have a postmodernist tell me that I am clueless as to what any of these are. Another reason is to have writers start realizing why they think the way they do, and possibly start questioning why they write how they do. I found out that, from the dozen or so people who took the test and posted their results to me, that most people I encounter and get along with online are modernist. A lot of these people reject mainstream media and they are secluded in alternative media sites because they don’t get along with the current overton window that’s among popular sites. I think it’s safe to say a lot, if not all, of these people are anti-woke, and they received 1 or 0 answers on the woke aspect of the test.
If I can pat myself on the back for anything, at least I can say I got the woke part correct.
Although the buzzwords I used for woke might be cheating since we all know I’m referring to something woke when I say something like “inclusivity” or “intersectionality” or “oppression”, because anyone who listens to even something like Joe Rogan will know these terms and treat them like they’re dripping with vomit and diarrhea. A lot of us, especially the classical liberal, center to center-right types, and even the center-left types, are tired of this woke nonsense. Even some guy who drinks beer while watching football and shopping at a basic store like Target is tired of this tomfoolery.
So this followup is to address a lot of the complaints I received and also to bring in some insight into how I wanted to conceptualize the test and how it turned out. I will also explain the relevancy of this type of test since some are wondering why something like scoring modernist means anything.
In philosophy, you are to hit 5 branches in order for your philosophy to be considered “full” or at least “full enough” to be granted a name. These 5 are:

1. Metaphysics (study of existence)
2. Epistemology (study of knowledge)
3. Ethics (study of action)
4. Politics (study of force)
5. Aesthetics (study of art)

If you hit all 5 of these at least once, you have a full range of addressing the stuff that makes up a philosophy. I tried to reverse engineer these 5 categories into 22 questions, and after the fact(meaning this evening), I realized that I should have had 4 questions for each category and then 2 questions about the reader and then the writer. The number 22 is related to the major arcana in tarot, with the 2 extras being the fool(the writer) and the world(the reader). That or maybe something like “what exactly do you write in your story?” and then that can relate to worldbuilding or something. It would have to be a question that lets us know what the person sees as a good world to write in the first place, because then that would show us the world they aim for, which is related to their worldview.
Or maybe to question what they read so that we can see what a writer finds interest in, so that it correlates with what they would write.
That was not critiqued by others, but I know I messed up on that. I was listening to a Jordan Peterson video where he said that a good survey questionnaire takes months of planning to get the wording right for the questions and the answers, and I looked at my test and saw I did it in a day, and went “well, I think I messed up, yeah.” My own critique will be taken into consideration so that I can remake the test and make it better. To repeat what I said in the test: I wish to use this to determine who to avoid when hiring and working with people, because anyone scoring even something like 2 answers on the woke mentality is something to be concerned about.
Other critique involves question 1 where the phrase “copy it” should be changed to “emulate it”. Yeah, I agree, that makes more sense, since copy makes it sound like someone is not putting their own spin on it or putting it in their own words. Imitate, match, resemble, something that intends to retain the purpose but including your own position on the matter. Question 17, how we get our knowledge, is a very open question about epistemology, and that one seems to have given a few people the woke answer by accident, even if they aren’t woke in the way they answer. The problem with the term “lived experience” is that people think it’s a normal term and it is one of the few woke terms that go over some people’s heads. The term is used commonly in correspondence with articles that feature globohomo artwork and they talk about how it’s important to have a person in your corporation or non-profit organization who holds “lived experience” and they are referring to living as a black person to know what a black person feels.
I find this incredibly woke because, as I’ll explain further later on, the woke are saying that the only way to know something is to be that thing, thus forcing writers to be, say, autistic in order to write an autistic character. Or they must be a woman to write a woman. Or they must be a black to write a black. This enforcement is what causes the demand for diversity hires, because somehow these diversity hires hold mystical magical knowledge that nobody else in the company would even dare to understand or comprehend unless they checked off some boxes first. On top of that, the term “pragmatic action” was poor wording and that’s my bad. I was trying to say something like “scientific realization” in order to attach the modernist to science. Something that is both pragmatic(able to be done practically) and part of some kind of education/training. You’ve done it, you’ve learned about it, you see others do it, that can be the modernist idea of knowledge.
Other than those two, I think every other question went over rather well, but I will still enhance them to be worded better as time goes on and as I revisit it with more of an organized “5 sets of 4 and the 2 big ‘uns” in mind. But then there comes the elephant in the room. The scoundrel who dared to question my authority and make a critique about the test. How dare they and stuff.
Jokes aside, I really like this kind of critique and it’s great that she put it into clear questions that I can firmly address. I like it when people are clear. It’s much better than that obfuscation thing the postmodernists always do when they complain about me without really having a reason other than something where they don’t like labels or they were offended that I dared to mention any category of anything. Page Zaplendam, a fellow writer, brought up 3 important questions which you can see for yourself here:

1. Where are the definitions of the terms?
2. How do you justify reducing things to something like woke?
3. How do you prevent people from rejecting pre-modernism?

I’ll address the first one to then follow through with the rest of the answers, because they all go in a long chain of “why, why, why” and “how, how, how”.
To begin the explanation, we’re going to need to establish what modernism is so that the others can be explained. It’s the word that created the reason we see a difference in aesthetics like this because this was the moment we engaged in what’s called the enlightenment. During the early 17th century and around that time, people started to remove their dependency on kingdoms and instead create nations and industry. Religion was also being questioned because scientific advancements through record keeping allows people to give better assessments on what causes something to happen in the world. The view of the world started to become more natural and so naturalism was common, as well as rationalism and empiricism. People were using logic to make their decisions and data to come to conclusions, rather than faith or scripture from prior.
During this time, the modern age, traditions were tarnished and deemed as unnecessary. Medicine allowed people to praise science instead of pray for a mystical cure. Predictions of weather with meteorology allowed people to reduce famines and starvation. Printing presses allowed books to become more common, machinery allowed more production of goods, and life went from depending on neighbors to depending on communities and global trade. This dramatic change in both lifestyle and mentality allowed art to enter the modernist art era, which is determined as art that experiments to search for new meaning and objectivity without the necessity of a deity, tradition, or the supernatural.
Mythology became psychology, alchemy became academia, and religion became fandom. Everything mentally changed under modernism to create an environment of experimentation, the romances took over, which led to the pulp adventures and existentialist works of things like noir. Weird tales brought us ideas of cosmicism, thanks to the lack of god or at least the lack of a god who cares about humanity. With this freedom from religion, the mostly liberal environment of modernism allowed people to make up their own rules, their own ideas of what’s real, and thus we were able to focus more on the individual, rather than the collective. Stephen Hicks has a great video where he lectures about how modernism came to be and what it is, but I can simplify it into the 5 categories he has on his chart.
Metaphysics: naturalism
Epistemology: empiricism and reason
Human Nature: Tabula Rasa(everything mental is gained from experience)
Ethics: individualism
politics/economics: liberal capitalism
As you can see, modernism caused this reliance on the self, but also reliance on science as a replacement for religion. It caused the worship of money, while also opening people up to other ideas thanks to the liberal mindset. The liberty to engage with other things allowed people to mingle with both good and bad ideas. This is actually why people, like James Lindsay, say that liberals caused things like Nazism and Communism to come into fruition, because the liberal is so open and accepting that they allow terrible ideas to take over the top of the social structure and they think it won’t touch them if they are on the bottom. This is also how dictators were able to trick people into treating them like a God, because the dictator convinced people that they were able to answer prayers and did this during their campaigns to get elected or during the revolution while they’re beheading their opponents in the streets.
In other words, the uprising of democracy had people rely on voting in the same way as people relied on prayers, but here it’s where we pray to a natural government and hope they do something we want.
One thing that we don’t like to realize is that colonization occurred because of a scientific superiority among the Europeans, and this scientific advancement was caused by years of wars and immense dedication to their royalty. Then there were areas they colonized that had a crazy amount of gold, such as Australia and the Aztec empire, and this abundance of gold allowed trade to skyrocket, while Indian trade and the silk road allowed wealth to spread across the globe. Diamonds and gold found in Africa, like a sick joke from God to force white people to go to such a hellhole to get the diamonds in the rough. It’s not that white people wanted to go around and rule the world. It’s that enlightened explorers and merchants wanted to make a crazy amount of money and these environments were inhabited by people who left these literal gold mines untapped, and these explorers used technology to take over.
No wonder modernism was full of that toga wearing utopia sci-fi stuff!
It’s not hard to realize why the Europeans took over entire empires with small groups of conquistadors. They had armor, guns, ships with cannons. Those Chinese must have their face red realizing they are the ones who sold them black powder. Every alchemist should feel bad and stuff that they are the reason guns were used versus the people who didn’t have guns. It was such a destructive force to use guns against savage tribes and kingdoms because it was both physical and psychological. It was like dealing with metallic robots who fired lightning from their arms and filled the area with a concealing smoke. That’s like showing a caveman a cellphone, their brains instantly melt trying to comprehend what’s going on.
So people are angry at the modernists for being… rational and empirical, and I guess being urbanized or industrialized. People are mad at capitalism for being effective and a good way to globally get along. They’re mad at liberals for being okay with race mixing. The utter nerve of such horrid actions. How dare people mix. I’ll make sure to tell my own future mixed kids that they should be ashamed of themselves for having parents who came from different parts of the Earth and that’s about it.
So modernism, do I like it?
Well, it’s not bad. A lot of my favorite stuff is modernist and usually when people say they want to go back to the old days, they point at modernism as the example. Hell, a lot of postmodernists now are saying they want to go back to modernism, and then they say they don’t, because they feel like it's superior, but they hate the idea of accepting that it’s modernist. I mean, that’s why it’s called postmodernism, it’s the thing after modernism is gone, it’s the rejection of modernism and also pre-modernism. But more on that one later.
I noticed a lot of people got mostly modernist as their answers on the test and it makes sense. Many people online, especially on alternative social media, will be actual liberals who are open to different ideas, which allows them to engage with things that both offend them and possibly something they see as evil. They’re open to having their minds changed and they are always willing to learn more because there’s a big idea on learning more and experimenting, which is something I can relate to because I’m always trying out new restaurants in my area and I don’t mind trying a genre that I’m not familiar with. For me, I have a bit of that liberal mindset because I try out a lot of things I’m not familiar with and I end up liking some stuff, but I usually stick to what I established as my firm ideas from prior.
For example, when I was a kid I hated eating beans and I refused to eat fish that wasn’t canned tuna. Now, after being more open, I love salmon and I love eating beans, which dramatically helped my nutritional intake. There is a healthiness involved with experimenting and there is also a risk factor. But if you know how to avoid dangers, I don’t see a problem with trying out something like a new genre you’re not used to, just to see if you can get into it.
I mention this because the modernist writer will experiment, but will also claim a truth that comes from rationalism, which assumes the world we live in is logical. Even if it’s chaotic and absurd, they’ll say it’s logical, because it’s predictable and we can interact with it. This allows their writing to hold to formulas through things like pulp, while also experimenting through things like weird fiction. There is repetition that happens, and this is why genres became a big thing, so the reader can tell what form of repetition they want to deal with through what they are familiar with. This caused what’s called a comfort zone, which is the state of mind where a person feels at ease because there is an abundance of familiarity and a lack of unwanted challenges. Genres create these comfort zones, and this is then where we have to talk about individualism.
Liberalism has the problem of causing individualism to slowly become sophistry and egotism. The person declaring they are the one who is to be relied on and they are the ones who make up their own rules becomes a person who can’t tell who they’re obeying. Especially if that person puts something above themselves, like race, or science, or nation, or the opinions of others through democracy. Thanks to romanticism during this modernist time, we were able to feel like we had an abundance of freedom and capability, but then barely a century later the rise of Naizsm and Communism caused people to realize that this capability is in relation to what the shadow is capable of. The darkest, most disturbing and destructive actions a person is capable of, beyond their imagination and beyond what we’d consider a “human act”.
This quick change into the most dangerous entity nearby is why I don’t trust anarchists when they say their utopia would be functional. When it comes to real life, that doesn’t work, we need a more powerful overarching thing to keep that shadow in check, and we need that entity above the human to be in check of its own shadow on top of that. And this shadow is also what causes the modernist to engage with things like dada and a hatred of art to the point where they can say the work is for them and them alone, or that all art is equal, down to where a turd on a pedestal is the same as the Mona Lisa.
The pro of modernism is a focus on the individual, which promotes movements like poetic realism and neorealism, which grants a look into everyday lives. The mundane can be put into the forefront and average people can feel like they relate, which allows the average person to buy the work. That is a great plus, and it’s why the most popular shows out there are stuff that involves soap opera style drama and an environment that is simple, like a hospital or a police station. The sitcom is a result of modernism, because only a modernist would find value in seeing a family hang around their house while you’re sitting in your house with your family watching someone else in their house with their family.
Now let’s get on with pre-modernism, after all of that introduction is said and done. Pre-modernism is everything that came before this enlightenment and this separation from God. Atheists like to say how atheism has been popular forever and they have simply been suppressed, but something crazy that they ignore is that every civilization, without ever talking to each other, before any contact with anyone else, became a religious, spiritual, civilization. We even have a name for this basic religion, called animism. This natural desire to be religious in humans comes from how we think when we are young, as well as how we think when we are not relying on science or even words.
I know this sounds strange but we think more in pictures and visions than we do with words when we don’t know how to read. Reading unlocks a vast amount of knowledge that can be gained practically instantly, but a lack of language in our ability to think causes an abundance of symbolism in our head to fill in the gaps, meaning the ability to read locks away this visual aspect. When we’re babies, we view everything as giant, threatening, and frightening. And why not? We’re this tiny soft thing that has a skull that can easily be dented and we’re unable to feed ourselves. We need someone to throw food into our mouths like bananas into the mouth of a hippo at a zoo. We have our parents doing stuff for us, and so our brain right away connects the two.
Stuff happening around us is caused by something like a parent, like an authority, like a sky father and earth mother. The father gives me brain stuff and the mother gives me food stuff. But then we’ll grow up and realize that something like the wind moves on its own, the moon comes up to replace the sun on its own, and the seasons change on their own. There’s something we can’t see that’s doing this, something beyond the sky and under the ground, and everywhere we can’t see, especially behind our eyeballs. There’s this strange image that appears behind my vision that is not of the world but of my mind, and I conjured it.
And if I didn’t conjure it, I had someone else put it in my head through a spell, in the form of words, which cast the symbol to occur in my mind. Writers in the pre-modernist age are spellcasters, wizards, that make sure something is explained about the mysterious and supernatural world that is beyond the stuff we see around us. This “rejection of the average” causes the pre-modernist writer to talk about stuff that are not only real, but hyper-real. It doesn’t speak about an individual and it’s not for an individual, because it’s attaching everyone under the same umbrella and form. This is why I find poor interpretations of mythology humorous but also rather useless.
People will look at something like Greek mythology where a god has a child with their sister and go “well, isn’t incest a bad thing?” Not only do they miss the point, but they forget that it's a god we’re talking about and it’s not a human. It’s not some biological thing standing in front of you. It’s the supernatural, it’s beyond something like biology. Or better yet when someone reads the bible and goes “why did Adam take a rib out to get a woman? Couldn’t God just make a woman without taking his rib?”
It’s like, you missed the point and you’re ignoring the importance of symbolism, and this symbolism grants all of the meaning that you’re missing from the bible. Yes, Eve is made from Adam, and yes, it takes a rib, because rib is a bone and bone is structure. A rib is near a heart, a protector of heart. Heart is courage, love, emotions, stuff that makes our blood pump. Blood is a humor based on air, and air is one of the 4 elements. The connection goes on and on and on, because this mythology is all connected together into one giant story that goes beyond the words stated in the story. Each tiny noun or verb means way more than it lets up to mean. I’ve been studying mythology for a while, and really trying to look into them before I say anything about them, and there is so much inner history with mythology that’s both present and reachable, but it’s practically endless with how everything connects.
And at the same time, all of this is essential, of a form, symbolic, and objective.
This relation to religion in pre-modernism causes the definition to be something like “the art form that depicts hyper-reality in an objective truth that involves the supernatural as a source of the natural and as the source of truth.
Stephen Hicks puts the politics of the pre-modernist as feudalism, but it’s more like monarchy, where you believe that there should be a king, because someone has a family line that was sacred enough to treat like one. In pre-modernism, we had ancestor worship in every culture, because your family line was important to keeping your existence relevant. This is because everything in the pre-modern age involved titles, which were granted by an authority, and many times this authority is a god or an ancestor.
Your title within your family is in relation to your family members and your last name determines your family’s title for others to recognize. If someone was a smith, they would get the last name smith, like say John the smith just becomes John Smith, and they will endow their established trade to their next of kin. So if the son of John Smith wants to make a living, he’s going to be a smith as well. There is this lineage and family business that is treated seriously, because if you step out of this title, you’ll have to create your own. People could do that by entering a trade or a guild, by learning from others, from gaining a title after being born a bastard, or whatever they could to get a title.
But the key factor is that title is important to the pre-modernist. What’s even more important is form, because this religious mentality creates the environment that perfection is possible. A metaphysical manifestation separate from the material world that is able to be aimed towards and sought after, even if unable to be reached. This was well portrayed in characters like Jesus, which Christianity dedicated itself to fulfill the traits of Jesus, due to Christianity being a religion where people follow the teachings of Jesus.
I would say that every religion had their own type of Jesus, the perfect form that someone or something has to uphold and look up to as inspiration.
Later on, alchemy came out of the prototype phase and started to connect all of these religions and symbols with each other to create more overarching symbolism that went for more core ideas. At this point, people could only argue against combinations and where something is in a hierarchy, rather than the validity of the claim of something like a single god or a creator. Sects of religions were made in order to determine different end goals, or different ideas in how a ritual should be done, or whether something like a church is important for worship, and these were the biggest sources of dispute possible.
You either followed God's will or you didn’t, and if you didn’t, you were a heathen. Heathens are sent to the bad place, believers go to the good place. We have a supernatural aspect of our body, beyond our body, beside our body, that went there for us, usually in the sense of a soul or spirit. The mind is an intermediary between the body and spirit that allows communication between the two at all times. This was usually depicted with gods like Psyche or Hermes or any other messenger god.
The gods would speak to us with omens and with us using clairvoyance. Any pattern in front of us or up in the stars could be used as a means to decipher a supernatural message. This message was easily able to repeat itself because there was an objective meaning to everything, which is why something like Zodiacs are constantly watched even to this day. Pre-modernist art retains this tradition of using mythology and symbolism to depict truths about the world. Romanticism was an attempt to return to this truth telling style during the modernist era, but Romanticism was absent of the religious aspect and was more of something like a neo-alchemical way of handing stories, where symbols were kept basic and for individual progress instead of a collective one.
A big part of pre-modernism is collectivism, especially the collective unconscious, which Jung coined later on when referring to his more pre-modernist analysis of psychology that heavily relied on alchemy and mythology. We used mythology to say something of value, with a universal or at least human level of objectivity, and the only way to miss the message is to deny that symbolism exists for them. Or at least, your level of symbolism in your interpretation would have to be so low resolution that it misses every point entirely and has zero context as to why mythology is important in the first place.
Mythology grants the idea that our world holds order, while the modernist idea is more about how the world is chaotic and we hold order to shape the world better. Fables grant the idea that particular personalities do particular things, while modernism declares that things change or can be grey and shows how. The black and white morality of the pre-modernist merged into grey once modernism kicked in, because there is the lack of theism under modernism.
We’re half way through the explanation and now we come to postmodernism.
Pre-modernism establishes that the supernatural causes order to cause truth, modernism changed that to say a secular natural world causes chaos to have us find truth. So what does postmodernist do to change all of that?
It rejects both and says both pre-modernism and modernism are wrong, and instead says everything that can be perceived is subjective and the objective is unknown to us. Stephen Hicks says in his video that postmodernists are really intelligent and well read into an abundance of stuff, and he’s impressed by that. I would have to disagree with him because it’s not like they read everything they did in order to understand it. They read everything and continue searching because they intend on claiming it’s not true, and use their personal interpretation to claim such. It’s very much like when a person studies mythology to then say “you know, the gods committing incest and magically transforming is really weird.”
Before I get deep into postmodernism, I would like to explain the concept of realism. Realism, in both philosophy and art, is to depict a thing as how it truthfully is. There is accuracy, there is something there that really exists, and it has attributes that causes it to really exist. Both modernism and pre-modernism have this as an axiom. Postmodernism on the other hand is ANTI-realism.
You cannot believe in something being “real” as a postmodernist because to claim something is real is to claim an objective truth, which a postmodernist is allergic to doing. They are unable to claim anything as true, because there is no proof for them to use, thus any statements they make must be an opinion and any statement they see must be perceived as an opinion as well. In all honesty, I have trouble finding postmodernists who go this far down the rabbit hole. All of them focus on subjectivity, but they’ll still try to tell others that things can be real in a colloquial way that lets them blend in with modernists. It’s hard to get people to follow you when you claim things aren’t real, so there is a form of deception and contradiction that occurs, but it’s also acceptable to the postmodernist.
This is because postmodernists don’t care about logic, and anything they want to claim as “true” is based on a social subjectivism that can also be considered an overton window that shows them what is acceptable to say and what isn’t. A lot of them try to push it, others try to blend in with it, with the intensity depending on how far they want to push their deconstructionism and reductionism. For example, phrases like “we’re all just stardust floating around” is a way for the postmodernist to seem deep with their reductionism, but it’s actually their way of saying they are nihilistic while trying to sound deep and poetic.
Stephen Hicks does have an amazing point in his presentation where he says truth no longer matters to the postmodernist and what does matter is power. That kind of concept comes from Nietzsche’s will to power (which is why Nietzsche is considered a proto-postmodernist, one who helped birth it into existence) and Marx’s historical materialism. The thought that human labor forms the material basis of society, and this idea being spread out into every 3rd world country(aka communist country during the cold war) means that a big chunk of the world is convinced of this concept of power through labor and power through capital that’s seen as “stolen labor” when it’s a bourgeoisie.
This leaning into Marxist terminology, thanks to communists and hippies, causes postmodernist politics to be considered leftist, and exclusively leftist. There is no way for a right wing postmodernist to even occur because the right winger believes in a truth through natural rights and there is no way to remove that aspect. This is why Stephen Hicks calls the postmodernist political and economic idea socialist, which what he really means is leftist. Although, socialist works a bit more for the political aspect since socialism is a wonky word that means whatever the socialist wants it to mean.
They think the worker owns the means of production and that some form of social relevancy should happen and the rest is dependent on what they want to advocate for. Not surprisingly, this socialist aspect quickly turned into syndicalism and later corporatism when relying on the government to enforce this social power upon the masses, also known as a cult of personality. The cult leader, or leaders, tell everyone that they have power, they tell everyone that they’re special, the people don’t question it because they think it’s a common opinion, and so the cult grows unrestrained. We see this at all times when people will both hold water for a politician for any little thing and also attack their opposition for any little thing, no matter how much of a double standard or fallacy they apply to their advocacy.
To the postmodernist, advocacy is labor geared towards power, with advocacy being the only thing you can do to socially stay relevant.
When it comes to postmodernist media, the key idea is exploitation, because the goal is to get as many views as possible and break as many boundaries as possible. Modernist rating systems are pushed and pushed constantly into exploitation to the point where new ratings are made and R rated material becomes the new norm. The grindhouse is a common place and is normalized, even though before these would be considered taboo, because the way the overton window moved more towards the left through their advocacy. The leftist postmodernist demands power as the social structure and so they demand power and are slowly granted it over time. But there is a bit of a weird thing that happens between how Hicks and I see postmodernism.
In his chart, he labels postmodernism as collectivist and egalitarian. I see this as a bit misleading since the leftist is not really for collectivism in the same way as a pre-modernist would claim we’re all connected. The postmodernist believes that we’re all connected in how we’re all trapped in our own subjective constructions, as if we’re all islands in this massive chain of islands and the water between us is the subjective separation.
For example, let’s say I look at a dog and another person looks at a dog. We both see the dog but the dog is one dog for me and another dog for them and there is this supposed infinite number of dogs who make up this single entity that takes up the space where the perceived dog resides. And not just an infinite number of dogs, but infinite number of things between what the dog is made of, with an infinite number of those for each smaller thing. I guess, to him, that’s collectivism, and the egalitarian thing comes from how leftist demand that people are to be treated equal, as well as all art to be treated equal.
Just like dada, which was a proto-postmodernist art movement, the postmodernist thinks that all art is equal, with the Mona Lisa holding the same aesthetic value as a turd on a pedestal. This allows the postmodernist to use juxtaposition to combine something of high regard with something of low regard, like say having classical music play during a moment where someone is being tortured in a grindhouse way. Or maybe another example is like how Tarantino combines low quality exploitation movies with high quality dialogue that people praise for its realism and tension. This is why surrealism became popular under postmodernism, because surrealism juxtaposes a high concept symbol with nonsensical low concept literal images or events.
Another aspect of postmodernism is the idea that art and real life has merged into a type of hyperreality that blurs the line where life and art meet. People record their lives online and turn that into media, thus turning even things like talking about people who are in media into a form of media itself(aka Hollywood gossip stuff and youtube drama).
Without much of a message or objective symbolism, a lot of postmodernist media focuses on playfulness, because messing with things is all that there’s left as a means of entertainment and media making. Personal interpretation as the only means of experiencing causes the postmodernist to aim for open interpretation work, using vague wording and dog whistles to hide intents that they believe a common audience wouldn’t like, but select circles would catch. And with this demand for social power came the rise of corporate media, where corporations crank out stuff with self made trends and control groups who guide the corporation towards more money, thus more power.
There is also a combination of media, usually in the form of merchandising, so that a form of media will still be advertised and thought about, even when not engaged with the media directly. For example, GI Joe started out as a toy for kids. Then it became a comic and a show for kids. Now it’s a movie series for kids. Transformers, He-Man, I think even Gundam. These things aim for sales first and then plan the story after, because it’s all one big marketing campaign. There’s nothing in these that try to say what is true, they simply try to say things that will have people think they agree with it, or at least can’t argue against it to where they disengage with the product that’s being sold.
This has caused postmodernist media to become both highly marketable but also highly forgettable. Things easily get outdated even if the tech level stays consistent because of intertextuality, which is the relationship one media has with another to grant the user of intertextuality with relevancy that can have the audience understand the reference. This is a fancy way of saying something like an inside joke or a typical reference like a meme that we see online. If you ever want to understand this one, just think of any Channel Awesome reviewer. They will try to make jokes that reference something in media, probably something they reviewed prior, in order to keep the dedicated fans in the circle of attention and make the new fans try to keep up with this intensifying requirement of knowing jargon.
Intertextuality can also be seen as a sort of specialized culture within a franchise or company or genre or just stuff that is similar, so that the people who are of the fandom can all enjoy speaking some special language with each other and keep out the people who don’t know about their niche idioms and references.
This combination of reality and media, along with removing objectivity from the equation, with high and low arts being combined through playfulness and for marketing, is why our media is the way it is today. It’s made like fast food, doesn’t offer anything for the brain to work with, and is actually more for our brains to turn off if anything. People like Ray Bradburry saw this issue with TV and determined it was going to turn us into Idiocracy, which he explored in his book Fahrenheit 451. People are indulged and distracted by the idiot tube, they stop questioning things, books start being called evil, the government enacts a war against books, all people have left are things that keep them dumb, and then they can’t even see a war that’s happening all around them and in their own backyard.
The benefit of postmodernism is that it can appear more creative and people get entertained. That’s about it. No more feeling like you need to tell the truth, now you can make a story about whatever. The only benefit quickly becomes the main problem with it: it’s a bad influence. Postmodernists can only deconstruct and so they’re never pleased.
We see this all the time with Channel Awesome reviewers where they will miss the point of everything in a movie, like say Last Action Hero, and even though Last Action Hero is a postmodernist deconstruction of action movies, the reviewer will scream and holler about how the movie can’t be taken seriously. Then when they are challenged on the integrity of their review, they will spin it around and say they were just being meta and knew it was satire all along, that nobody should take any review of theirs seriously or as their actual opinion.
Or better yet, a postmodernist fan will chime in and speak for the reviewer, like when I said Spoony’s review of Final Fantasy 8, yet another deconstruction work that people were conflicted on, was misguided and wrong. A bunch of fans came in and said “Well, that’s not his REAL opinion. He didn’t REALLY say what he wanted to during the months he spent working on that review.”
I guess the point of postmodernism is to NOT say what you mean. Because how can they? That would address there is an objective idea in their head of what they mean, and that can’t happen under postmodernism. So you’re left with this endless chain of people trying to make a satire or make fun of something that is already making fun of something and that thing is already not to be taken seriously, and… you get the picture.
But then, recently, a sort of organized idea sprouted out from postmodernism. This idea that everything is both power and subjective, while also being a social construct, coagulated into a unification of something under what is called intersectionality. In 1989, Kimberly Chrenshaw coined the term, which already was working off of ideas during postmodernism such as second wave feminism and critical race theory. Through the idea that extreme egalitarianism is the way, in a subjective way, these defenders of the marginalized demanded that media should cater to whoever they deem as marginalized.
This branch of postmodernism is known as woke.
For wokeness, there isn’t much of a history or even aesthetic choice to shift through, but there is an awful lot of jargon to explain so that people know what I’m talking about. So for the majority of the woke explanation, I will be explaining the special words used that the woke will both claim are super important to know, but will also refrain from defining because they want to keep it on the down low. They mostly want to do that because they know their reasoning doesn’t make any sense and because it’s self contradictory, but that’s okay for them because they are, by their own admittance, anti-logic and “there is no real wokeness”.
Actually, before I explain the jargon, I want to get into that “there is no such thing as woke” talking point they always do. This is the same thing as saying “I want everyone to do x and there is no x”. Or when they are less radical, they will say something like “Everyone should do x, but nobody has done x yet.” But recently it’s been more like “This thing in the media has always been x, which is why we need it to be more x”.
As you can see, the narrative is always changing and they are always telling people to do something. This is the opposite of postmodernism in how it’s authoritarian, but is part of postmodernism because of the subjective aspect, as well as the neo-dada form of anti-art. The “art” of woke art is meant to express representation, and this representation is supposed to be of a group, and this group is supposed to look a particular way, absent of any stereotypes, negative or positive, and absent of any grand narratives, pre-modernist or modernist.
Therefore, all we’re left with is… appropriation and exploitation of marginalized groups.
Something tells me they didn’t think this through. It’s almost as if their goal is to be the thing they claim to fight against, but they don’t want to be called racist or sexist or whatever phobic because they don’t want to lose social power. This enforcement of an ideology, an ideology that tries to equally exploit for money, is put under the acronym DEI: Diversity, equity, and inclusion. This is a profitable business to get into, because DEI is estimated to have corporations annually spend $17 billion on DEI programs and organizations by the year 2027. In 2003, it was estimated that corporations spent $8 billion. In 2022, that number was recorded at $9 billion.
What do these numbers mean? It means companies are wasting money on this and they’re losing money after enacting woke policies.
When we combine wokeness with the socialist/Marxist mentality of the postmodernist, we end up with a constant drain of capital on the end of the media maker. The one making the art LOSES MONEY when they go woke, which is why we say “go woke, go broke.” There is no intention on making money with wokeness. This is why governments added wokeness to what is called the ESG score, which is a score that governments use to subsidize companies that follow things like climate change advocacy, DEI, and following whatever regulations a country puts in like mask regulations.
Follow these things, get closer to the “leader” score, and you get more money from the government. This is why companies don’t care when they lose customers, because at the end of the day, they are kept afloat by tax dollars. Then the people in charge of these companies buy the lowered stock that was hit by a controversy, and they have it go back up between woke projects. This is why the CEO of a corporation loves woke backlash, as long as they can pretend they had nothing to do with the woke decision. This is why, for example, Budlight decided they had nothing to do with hiring Dylan Mulvaney AFTER the boycotts worked, instead of, you know, while hiring him to be a spokesperson for the beer on April Fools day of all days.
So the go broke part is for the company itself, while the people using wokeness for their benefit are grifting and taking short term gains. Same thing was for something like BLM, which is an organization that revealed the money donated for the purpose of helping black communities was instead used to buy the founders mansions. The idea that wokeness brings in the cash and it can be called “woke capitalism” is absurd due to the lack of longevity the concept has. This is like calling a stolen item that gets sold at a pawn shop “illegal capitalism”. It doesn’t mean much, and it’s just trying to tie capitalism in with something negative, which is hilarious since wokeness is meant for the left.
With that out of the way, I’m going to get into the jargon, which will allow us to see some of the “philosophy” behind woke. The first one is “critical theory” which is what everything under wokeness is based on to enact a policy. This is how they choose who is marginalized and who isn’t. The term critical race theory originated in the 1980s through discussions about laws because some people decided that equality was not enough. It’s not enough that you can treat a person as an equal, like how a liberal does, because somehow a person born in 1980 is influenced by their ancestry from 1480. Judith Butler helped popularize critical queer theory, which lost the critical part once that aspect was seen as bad, thanks to critical race theory.
They kept all of the critical theory roots, but they removed the word critical because they don’t want to appear… critical. This also happened when Lisa Tuttle popularized the current form of feminist theory, where they remove the critical part because of the stigma they know the word has. No matter what, deception and omission must be used to get their agenda through, because that’s all they know how to do. They cannot get power unless they deceive people into giving them their power. And I find that a little odd since critical theory is a Marxist theory that came from the Frankfurt School from a man named Max Horkheimer, way back in 1937.
Max’s idea was that the enlightenment was a mistake, making him anti-modernist, but the postmodernists of this school of thought will still insist that there is something modernist about critical theory. They claim it’s because Marx was objective because Marx thought something objective is whatever is practiced, yet nothing he claims that is practiced was ever true, so it’s sort of a strange way to misdirect people into thinking that his appeal to his own version of rationalism was somehow actual rationalism. In other words, it’s wordplay. But, we can still say something like his attachment to science being a key element of his ideology, with science trying to be used to determine the natural world, is sort of modernist.
And this is the first step into getting confused as to what anything is, which is why people need a clear explanation as to what something like a modernist is. A good way to explain if something is actually modernist is if you can ask a writer if they believe in marxism and objectivity. If they say no, then we can see that Marxism appeals to the postmodernist in a way that is by design, not by accident. This is why Jordan Peterson is forced to call actual Marxists “neo-Marxists” and “cultural marxists”, because of the constant wordplay that is used by the very same Marxists.
Now, I want to harp on Marxism due to the fact that every single critical theory that the woke adopted is a Marxist theory. Critical theory was based on Marxism and critical theory declared that cultural equality was required in order to prevent fascism. It determined that individuals are not the ones behind social problems, but instead these problems were caused by social structures and cultural bias. What are these problems and what are the solutions, you may ask?
Well, critical theory doesn’t have any of that covered. In fact, the goal was to NOT cover any of those and to just say “social problems are at the social level” and that’s it. Congratulations, theory complete. The social thing is about society and society is how individuals interact. So it’s not the individual’s fault, it’s how they act with each other that’s the problem. So the theory is saying we need to change our act in order to solve the problems, and this was followed by the feminists who say we need to help the women get up in life. This was followed by the CRTists who said we need to help certain races get up in life. This was followed by the Queer Theorists who said we need to help the LGBT get up in life. There is the body positivity, the handicapped, the “don’t slut shame me" movement, and the list goes on and on.
Now we’re in a world where all of these things are in our media and forced into our media because somehow critical theory is the new normal, but you’re not allowed to say it’s forced. If you say it’s forced, some people might reject it and then the enforcers lose power, so they will always say “this is how media always was”. This is how we now have people claiming that ancient civilizations were pro-trans and pro-gay, even though they weren’t and I thought the entire point in CHANGING society is because these social problems are ingrained into society?
This is how the woke say one thing and then mean another. They want the power, but claim the power is given to someone else, while they take the power for themselves. Something like gender is told to be super important and something even worth committing suicide over, but then the lady who made up queer theory says that gender is performative, meaning that it doesn’t matter. Feminism is told to be super important because this is how we can help women become equal, and then we’re told by the person who made current feminist theory that “you’re not born a woman, you become one, even if you were born a male.”
This “equality of power” that the critical theorists said they wanted quickly turned into an “equality of babbling”. Nothing under wokeness makes any sense, and neither does the origin of the term woke. It is meant to mean a person is awake, that they were sleepwalking through life and now they are aware that bad things are happening in society. What are these bad things? Well, whatever you can make up and convince others is bad, since it’s all subjective. If someone steals a VCR and they are black, you can say the police who arrested the thief are evil because they are oppressing a desperate black man who “wouldn’t have stolen if society just treated him better.”
Of course, this implies that rapists only rape because they weren’t treated well enough by society, but only of that rapist is a particular skin color. The woke quickly tie the “need to rape” with skin color, and then call others racists. Actually, now that I’m on the race topic, let’s lay out CRT and how they view race from their supposed “law related origins”.
CRT determines that race doesn’t actually exist, that white people created race to then create racism. I’ll say that again to make sure if you caught that. CRT, a belief about how race works, claims that race doesn’t exist. But then it blames a particular race because… it’s not racist. Did I mention that this belief is anti-evidence and anti-reason? Yes, they do not want reason or evidence to be used for laws, because these things are biased. Instead they want storytelling from the marginalized person, who is called black, even though they don’t believe black as a race exists. This storytelling can be something like “I was walking down the street and I saw a police officer and I felt fear. I should not feel fear. That means the police officer is racist because I’m black and they made me fear.”
To make it even worse, they determine that color blindness from laws causes racist laws to form, because discrimination can occur from certain laws like murder rates, drug use, and theft. Something like being on time to work is considered racist, because a clock is a construction by white people to keep black people down. There’s always something designed by the white man to “keep black people down” because they believe white people only have power because they can keep others down. This is why they advocate to pull all of the non-whites up by forcing white people to hire non-white people into roles in movies or something like a job or using affirmative action to force black people into college classes by reducing their requirements.
Apparently, when you go to the military, the goal is not to have a good soldier but to allow more women to get in by reducing the standard for them. The goal of getting black people into college is to reduce the requirements for them so that they can get in, while increasing the requirements for Asians because there are too many Asians in college. But if we look at media, and only the US media, we can see there is a lack of Asians, so Asians are forced into film sets. Yes, there are plenty of Asians in, you know, Asian countries, soaking up all of the film time, but they don’t count.
In fact, they don’t count because white people don’t watch them as much, so now we have to have an enforcement of Asians being translated into English for western audiences to indulge in Asian culture, which is why Netflix transfers money from the west to the east and tries to get a bunch of Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Thai content out. A lot of this Asian content is also LGBT, because even though these Asian countries don’t care for such content, the west must believe that the east is super open about it. There will be something like a comedy about a pregnant male that comes from Korea, and the west will take that and say it’s empowering because it fights against gender norms.
Meanwhile, the story is just a postmodernist joke about how it would be funny if men felt pregnancy pain. And it’s because there was a postmodernist comedy called Junior which had the joke “wouldn’t it be funny if a big buff Austrian dude was pregnant?”
My point is that wokeness is just appropriation, through and through. If it’s ancient bigotry, they will say it’s woke. If it’s modernist liberalism, they’ll say it’s woke. If it’s postmodernism making fun of wokeness, they’ll say it’s woke. No matter what, they will spin something to call it woke, just so that they can say liberalism is evil and equality is evil. Their goal is to have an equal outcome, which is their excuse to give certain groups more money and fame, all while ignoring merit. The very idea of rejecting merit as a qualifier is the reason woke media is designed to lose money, and is also a way to tie woke to postmodernism.
I think this is enough explanation of the jargon for now. Not sure if I missed anything, but I think enough of a point is made on that part to have anyone understand how wokeness works. The metaphysics is the same as postmodernist, it’s all subjective. The epistemology is through lived experience because of the storytelling that’s deemed as superior to reason. The ethics is social justice, because they demand equity, aka equal outcome. The politics are marxist, meaning their goal is to remove capitalism because capitalism is an evil product of liberalism. And finally the aesthetic is what I would call anti-art.
I guess I might be able to explain the aesthetics, but it’s rather loose. The problem is that art to the woke is just propaganda. The don’t really give a story or plot with woke media, instead they just take something generic and roll with it, assuming they even give it a plot. For example, there is a woke comic from Marvel(since every comic from them is woke now) where a superhero gets stopped by a cop for being native american. This female, possibly lesbian, native american uses her powers to have the cop realize he’s racist by mind controlling him into thinking he’s racist.
Work with me here…
So the cop is at his house later and decides that he can’t live with himself as a racist person, so he shoots himself in the head. The native american woman watches him from afar and goes “my work here is done” and considers herself a hero for the day. Comic book issue over. So the plot of that story was “super hero uses powers to make a random cop kill himself because racism.”
There is nothing in the story we can call true, nothing we can call interesting, nothing can be called entertaining, nothing can be called useful, nothing can be called anything other than utterly pointless. But the point was to say “racism exists. Stay woke.” That’s the message. That’s the reason an artist spent a month working on a comic and that’s why a company invested money into it to sell it to people who decided to pay money for it and read it. I have no idea who paid money to read that, but I can safely say it wasn’t that many people.
The goal is not to have people buy the product, it’s to simply say the product exists and point to it and go “see, a company put money into that group.” This is kind of like an updated version of “everyone gets a trophy” but instead of everyone, it’s the non-whites, non-cis, non-straights, and non-males. And instead of a trophy you get a product people don’t want to buy.
This is why I consider any answer as woke in my test as an indication of a person being woke. You really do need to jump through a bunch of hurdles to get stuck into this kind of mentality and the only question that people got woke was the one where lived experience is the answer. I think a better term might be anecdotal evidence, because like I said, the woke will reject reason and evidence and instead focus on storytelling, with storytelling here meaning you’re saying what you thought happened through your subjective opinion, and this can be anything you want it to be.
Hell, I can say something like “I felt like a unicorn” and that is considered a lived experience, because somehow I know what a unicorn feels like and somehow you now need to believe I did. So maybe anecdotal is the proper term to use, but then the woke will avoid that one since they know it looks like a fallacy and they can’t socially bring themselves to be stigmatized like that when they think it’s not acceptable. So it’s one of those things where I can either have one wording that causes a false positive or the other wording that will cause a false negative. But, then again, if someone is woke already, they would fail other questions anyway, so maybe I can put that one as not really important to worry about.
So there you have it, definitions and grave detail into all 4 types. I’m sure someone will conjure up more questions and I’m sure a postmodernist will say I’m wrong about everything, but at that point, I did my part so it’s not my problem.
Onto the next section that follows the next question: How do you justify reducing things to something like woke?
Reductionism is when you take something that is complex, like a story, and reduce it to particular fundamentals to provide a sufficient explanation. This is something like when a story gets reduced to a genre when you label it with a genre, because the genre is fundamental. This can also be something like calling yourself a Christian when you believe in the teachings of Christ. Sure, you have other qualities about yourself, but this can be an explanation into something that explains very quickly because it broadens the scope. But the question is HOW do I do this with something like woke, or modernism.
Simple: you look at the definition and go “ah, I see, that’s what it’s doing.”
Pre-modernism and modernism are objective, postmodernism and woke are subjective. Already these two groups are split by a single key factor. I can instantly say woke is a terrible storytelling way of thinking because the goal is to treat merit and superior quality as oppressive, so there is no possible way of making a good story that’s woke. It’s, by design, unable to be good. If we take postmodernism, we can say that it instantly rejects telling the truth, so it must make something up with exploitation and it’s going to be like fast food for the brain. It is, by design, unable to stand the test of time.
But then if we take something like modernism, we can see a truth is there, even if it tries to be individual, because then a guide based on personalities can be seen, and a way might be unlocked. This is why a modernist story is considered classic, and we look up to it as inspiration. Pre-modernism is as primitive and societally significant as you can get, to the point where it’s part of history books as a mythology. We base entire cultures around this type of media and we follow through with our daily life by using this type of media as a guide. In fact, pre-modernism is found IN postmodernism by accident when a postmodernist tries to appropriate, which is why we can find something like alchemy and Gnosticism in a postmodernist movie like The Matrix. There are modernist concepts like The Rabbit Hole in The Matrix, despite The Matrix trying to subvert it and reject it.
So like a genre, the direction of your modernist variant is reliant on both intention and focus, rather than if something is there. I can have a cockroach crawl into my cake when I’m baking it, that doesn’t mean cockroach is part of the recipe. So the goal of the test is to see what kind of recipe people are following and we can determine what kind of cook they are in how they view recipes. There is no danger of reductionism because reductionism is used to prevent dangers. In fact, in the most ironic way possible, to claim reductionism is dangerous here is to use dangerous reductionism to make such a claim, because it reduces the entire process to the idea of dangerous.
Now for the last question: How do you prevent people from rejecting pre-modernism?
Page has determined that if you claim form = function = truth, then you have caused pre-modernism to be the same as woke. As I’ve explained, they aren’t the same thing. Yes both are based on religions, with wokeness being based on Gnosticism, which is to self worship and deem yourself as the true god that is imprisoned in your body by the demiurge, but that isn’t the same thing as “telling an actual truth”.
Gnosticism is sophistry mixed with satanism. I always forget the term and can never find it, but it’s the belief that you’re alone and you’re talking to yourself even when you talk to others. This is how people get trapped in an echo chamber, because all the can do is hear themselves talk and tackle their own ideas of what could be wrong, which requires them accepting they could be wrong, and if they don’t accept that possibility, then everything goes in one ear and out the other. They start to follow a script, become an NPC, and all they can do is become violent once the script runs dry.
Can the pre-modernist become the same thing? Absolutely not. The benefit of a pre-modernist is that we don’t believe we rule the world. We understand that the world is in control, the supernatural controls the world, and we are below all of that as measly humans. We are the cameraman, not the director. Better yet, we are the audience watching a live feed with a cameraman controlling what we get to see, and we’re not involved in any of the production. This acceptance of humility allows the pre-modernist to seek truth, which is how a mythology is born in the first place. The only valid criticism is that the subjects become so grand and universal that they are basic and unable to really tackle the more personal and social issues that modernism tackles.
This basic and broadness is what Page considered “unentertaining”. But during a later exchange, during the making of this response, I found something fascinating. Page’s definition of entertaining is contradictory, because she believes it is objective in the fact that entertainment exists, but WHAT WE SEE as entertaining is subjective. So the complaint that something could be unentertaining isn’t valid, because it doesn’t mean anything if it’s subjective. It’s like saying a traditional dish doesn’t taste good and that’s why that traditional dish is bad to limit people to it.
Well, what if every good dish becomes traditional because people see it as tasty? I am not limited to my own personal tradition, I can enjoy another person’s tradition. I can eat sushi as a German who loves bratwurst and sauerkraut. I can eat pad thai and I can eat sweet and sour pork. I can eat baba ghanoush and shepherd’s pie.
Do you know why I can eat these? Because they are all food that is made of nutrients that people ate since the dawn of time. My human body needs stuff that humans eat for nutrients and there is a select number of nutrients that I need per day because it’s the stuff my body uses. Same goes for storytelling and the specific things my brain will use to gain wisdom and intelligence. The pre-modernist believes that there are these end points that we can address and say “this is the form, this is the end point, can’t go past that.”
The modernist claims “this is scientifically why we can’t go past a certain point, but we might get more information later that will allow us to pass that point.”
Then the postmodernist says “that point is a made up line, the limitation is made up, and the idea you’re in a particular position is also made up, so just mess with things and call them different things.”
Then the woke say “That point doesn’t exist but it’s oppressing me.”
As you can see, the pre-modernist is the most coherent because it’s the most accepting of how things are. I think what Page misunderstood is that some people think a form is what humans determine the form to be, and the form is left as that. Wrong. Form is to reach an endpoint and we cannot physically reach this endpoint, meaning the form will only be in our mental state through symbolism when we’re trying to think of such. Thus, symbolism is the key factor, and all you have to do is make the symbol more clear.
What really struck me as odd is that Page also declared the Bible as entertaining, meaning a pre-modernist work is the prime example of entertaining while her rejection of pre-modernism is because it is not entertaining. I cannot make any sense of that contradiction other than maybe Page believing that media being full of lies is entertainment and that’s not allowed under pre-modernism, which doesn’t mean anything to me.
That’s like going “well, your philosophy doesn’t allow contradictions and uses only logic, so it’s not a good philosophy.”
At that point, we simply have to call such a person postmodernist, because only a postmodernist would demand such a thing.
What am I going to do now that the test was tested? Well, I am sure I am going to make 5 sets of 4 questions for sure, with the 2 overarching questions added in the beginning and end. I will also try to use that google forms thing so that it can be a real test. When I get a website up for my company, I will have the test as part of the entrance exam to join the club. Pre-modernists are preferred, modernists are welcomed, postmodernists are tolerated, and woke are excluded. Sorry, we don’t allow such hateful people into the club. We like to work with normal functional people, and the woke do not meet either requirement.
And I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I am working on the test to have writers see what they KNOW about writing. That one is going to be a bit harder to put together, since I was thinking of getting written answers rather than multiple choice. I think the hardest part with that one will be figuring out how to work in creativity, since that one is tricky to sense if it’s intentional or accidental. But, like always, if I need help, I’ll ask.
Till next time.

There’s a lot going on and I don’t even know where to begin to process it.
Infidelity, drug use, a HCBM, and issues with step kids. We’ve had a rough month of arguing but started counseling and he planned therapy with the kids to do the work there, HCBM is hellbent on hating me (she’s also one of the infidelity partners) and has been using our recent arguing to twist her kids, mainly teenage SD. It’s hard because I haven’t done anything bad to SKs and yet I’ve been tippy toeing around because all their hatred and blame is on me, and I felt like my husband wasn’t doing enough to parent them out of fear of making them mad, and not listening to my concerns or really defending me enough. I admit my part in the arguments around the kids and my frustrations, I was wrong. But for 7 years his and HCBMs actions and behaviors toward me led to a lot of disrespect from SKs, when in the background I’ve been doing so much to hold this family together and make sure all the kids had what they needed/wanted… even at times buying birthdays and Christmas bc he couldn’t afford it. When I found out about the drug use, I carried that secret and felt like I was protecting them by staying. We had knowledge of HCBM drug use as well. Not only that, I could go into other safety issues related to the infidelity.
After a week of watching him passively parent the kids, while I took steps to change and say, okay I am not going to make comments or say anything parenting related to the kids, I am not going to do things like schedule their therapy for them, I am not going out of my way, I was already feeling pretty low. Then I found a cut up straw in his wallet.
Perfect timing, SD calls him to chew him out for me telling another parent something she told her mom, that was a concern about another kid. The other parent is a friend and as a mom I would want to know, husband was aware of me talking to her about it. SD was talking to my husband in a way that was totally out of line, and then began saying mean stuff about me. Of the kids, SD has the least reason to be unhappy in our house. She and I had up until recently had a great relationship, she got way more privileges and freedom and stuff, she was rarely in trouble. This hatred of me campaign totally looks like HCBM needing her ego stroked. So, unaware that my husband had unmuted himself, I said “what a little ooooorgh”.
She hung up and then HCBM called screeching at the top of her lungs that I called her daughter the b word. Technically I didn’t, but we know it was in my head, and I do wish I’d kept my mouth shut. I’ve been on the edge with this, and I yelled for HCBM to come over and I’ll beat her a. I 1000% take accountability, immediately knew it was wrong and apologized. It was a loss of control due to the buildup of emotions from everything and her high screeching, and hcbm has told the kids she’d beat me up before.. however, I don’t expect us to come back from that and I’m going back to finding the straw, more worried that drug use has continued… I have children and we have one together. I told him my apologies and that emotions are high but please consider your actions and words going forward are detrimental to what happens with the kids involved.
I found out his first move was to call his HCBM to say he left me. Ex had it on speakerphone with the kids around for a show. This isn’t the first time he’s run to her like a lost puppy after a fight. All this behavior just repulses me and I know I have to stay strong in at least a separation.
I just feel overwhelmed and anxious and sucky bc I don’t want a divorce. I don’t want to coparent. I don’t want to be alone and to lose my person of 7 years, however awful he was to me. I don’t want to run into HCBM at the grocery. I just want to skip town with my kids… how do I cope?

Just a random and perhaps trivial thought...
Watching the show now and during the original run, it looked like normal representation of people in New York City. Although the four main characters were white and usually hetero, everywhere they went they were in a normal population of people of different colors, ethnicities, cultures, gender identities and expressions. While a few episodes had surprisingly problematic and outdated ideas, and the four women mostly had white friends and dates, the show always was inclusive of people of color, various cultures, people who were gay, people who were non-traditional, people of different incomes, backgrounds and worldviews.
When the show got called out for its exclusive whiteness, I was puzzled. Were other fans very conscious of and bothered by the whiteness and vanilla-ness of the original show?