I was recently prescribed Mounjaro but it is not covered by my insurance and the prior authorization was denied. I have the option of Wegovy or Ozempic as my insurance will cover those. For those who have been on Mounjaro or two or all three of these - is Mounjaro so superior it is worth the $500 out of pocket or should I just go for Ozempic or Wegovy which is covered by my insurance for little or no cost? And if the latter, which of those? (I know they are the same medication but available dosages differ) Thanks!

Hello!
I wanted to give a quick timeline so far for my husband. I'm going to try to include all of the information that I see others asking for in the comments on other posts.
He's from Canada, has Nexus, and arrived as a visitor (B2) on October 22, 2022. We will be married for 4 years in August. We have a 17-year age gap (I am younger).
We concurrently filed I-130, I-485 (with I-864), I-765, and I-131, and submitted I-693 via a paper application to the Chicago Lockbox. We sent the package on May 11, 2023.
We included the following evidence for our marriage:

1. Marriage Certificate
2. Decree Nisi of Dissolution of Marriage in the Family Court of Australia (my husband was married prior)
3. Proof of joint Bank Accounts in Canada
4. Proof of authorized user on 3 different credit cards
5. Joint Lease (current residence)
6. Joint Lease (prior residence)
7. Joint Insurance for Current Lease
8. Joint Vehicle Insurance
9. Proof of Being Each Other's Work Emergency Contact
10. Proof showing my husband as the spouse and beneficiary for my 401k and IRA
11. Proof of being on the same account for Health Insurance in Canada
12. Our current health insurance in the US
13. Affidavits from two friends
14. Photo with those two friends
15. Wedding Photos (7)
16. Photos of us during our relationship (18)

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Submission date: May 12, 2023 (Receipt # begins with IOE09206)
May 19, 2023: Notice that Biometrics Appointment was scheduled in Seattle
June 7, 2023: Biometrics Appointment
June 8, 2023: Approval notice for I-765
​
I-130 and I-485 have the status of Case Is Being Actively Reviewed By USCIS as of June 7th.
I-131 still has the status of Case Was Received And A Receipt Notice Was Sent from May 12th.
I have my fingers crossed that at the very least his travel permit will be approved next. After that, USCIS can take as long as they like to approve his GC. I had to wait a long time for my permanent residency in Canada due to COVID, so we know how slow everything can be and how much the wait sucks.
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ETA: We did not receive a notification that the EAD was approved. I happened to look at our account today and saw the document under the documents tab. Also adding that our application is still with NBC.

Having some major difficulties getting an industry job that I actually want to work (namely, getting into a PhD level position in RnD where I can flex my scientific background). This is going to be part rant.My background: I would like to believe that I am a competitive candidate. Graduated from a competitive program with a PhD. 6 publications (some co-authors). Worked at the NIH prior to graduate school (post-bac IRTA program). Had the option to return to the NIH as a postdoc, but Bethesda area is quite expensive these days for a postdoc salary. Following graduation, I had an excellent postdoctoral position set up at RIKEN in Japan. Received 3 years of highly competitive postdoctoral funding (5-page written research proposal with a funding rate of less than 10%). Pandemic happened. Japan closed its borders before I was able to get my visa. Locked out of the country for 2.5 years. Forced to jump from one CRO to CDMO because I needed a job immediately and to increase salary.
Right now I have 3 years of industry experience and currently work for a real shitty CDMO that is a complete trainwreck that I desperately want to leave (immensely disorganized and mismanaged. Management places significant hurdles and roadblocks that prevent employees from developing beyond their role). I am a workaholic and my boss actually restricts me from doing too much on the job despite being a high performer and efficient. The trade off is that I have gotten to the point that I work a solid 5-6 hour day and simply leave when I'm finished with my assigned work. I gave up asking to do more work, because my requests are always ignored. Now I go home early and study programming instead (certificate program at local University). My current role is well compensated but I am bored to death. It's in quality control with a sprinkling of method validation/qualification work. However, my prior experience in a CRO was pure method validation work but the job was just too easy and not stimulating enough.
Consequently, I am trying to transition away from CRO/CDMOs and work in something that is more RnD/product development focused where I feel like I would get the opportunity to work on more challenging and exciting work.I recently applied for some RnD positions locally. Got an HR screen at one but ghosted after that. In hindsight, I could have been better prepared. I was taken aback that there was such little focus on my academic research background that matched nicely with the job requirements and all they seemed to care about was my recent experience that was rather unrelated in scope. Now I know what to expect in future HR screens. In the interview I still thought I made valuable connections between my academic work and the job posting, but I guess not enough. Nothing from the other positions.
Question for those here that have found themselves in a similar position (CRO/CDMO to RnD). How easy is it to make this transition? How wide of a net do you have to cast? I'm applying locally and with 3 years of experience in industry, I would have hoped that would make me more competitive than when I started looking for jobs when I had 0 experience. But with a tight market, I'm realizing that I'm likely not going to find a local position here. I generally write a brief cover letter of my background and how it relates to the job description. But is the cover letter necessary? My resume has gone through many edits over the past few years and is always tailored to the job I'm applying to (keyword matching). It's well polished and 2 pages. It's possible I'm making some errors here but it's brief and to the point. Skills/expertise presented right at the top of the first page. I'm probably acting a bit entitled and I need to do away with that attitude. It's like, hey, I'm good enough to work at some of the best research institutes in the world but I'm not good enough for your shitty little company? It's frustrating. Advice? Possibly adding connections on LinkedIn to companies I might want to work for in other areas of the country? Expand LinkedIn network in general for more networking opportunities?

I’m curious if anyone has been able to get a prior authorization approved since the changes that Optum made on May 19?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! We’ve sent out an old ugly version of this to a ton of agents and the only feedback we’ve gotten was “good query” which is weird because that was an objective lie lol. This query has yet to be submitted to an agent, let us know how to make it pop!
Edit! Thank you to everyone for the invaluable advice! It’s so refreshing to actually get real feedback. We are taking into account everything said here and will be looking to shorten the novel by 50-60k before resubmitting the novel. ——
Complete at 150,000 words, WAKING THE WITCH is an adult crime fantasy novel. It will appeal to lovers of punchy dialogue and heists like Elmore Leanord’s RUM PUNCH, but with a HARRY POTTER magical twist.
Forty years ago magic erupted from the land, and as a result many countries contested for a foothold in this terrifying new world, including the novel’s setting, the Divided States. The country, ravaged by death and sickness, struggles to recover from the Second American Civil War. It is the year 1993 and although the rights for witches have progressed, segregation and prejudice are still rampant, especially in the South. But there is one type of witch, through hearsay and propaganda, that is the most reviled of all, due to their ability to teleport through a realm deemed the ‘void’: the nomad––and unfortunately for Clementine Harding, she just so happens to be one.
At nineteen years old Clementine just wants to help pay off her mother’s surmounting medical bills and save the horse farm her father, recently deceased, dedicated his life to. So when upon discovering the existence of an invaluable prototype drug called ‘Cowfish,’ she steals it against her mother’s evangelical southern preachings.
Now she, and her three witch friends who perform as the quartet, The Nomads, when they’re not moonlighting as thieves, must flee to Oregon towards a potential buyer; a mysterious man who goes by the moniker ‘Pink Polo’ whose directly connected to the most influential drug lords of the Pacific North West, the Vernins.
In this desperate pursuit of freedom, Clementine’s doubts culminate as she is plagued by what she claims ‘prophetic dreams’ depicting one of the Nomads, Noah, dying a most gruesome death, and as the egomaniac Pink Polo is hell bent on toying with the Nomads for his own pleasure. Additionally, as she is further divided by distance and by consequence, she comes to realize that in her pursuit to save her family, she’s unknowingly pushed them further and further away; potentially to the point of no return.
All of Clementine’s fears come true when they discover the rightful owner of the prototype drug, Senimage, has long caught wind of them. The syndicate head, Ren Nishimura, gives the group an easy ultimatum, “work for us, or perish.” When Clementine learns the syndicate forces nomads into slavery, she is stricken by the knowledge that one false move could mean she’ll be lost to the world forever. Ren’s demands seem simple enough, ‘get us an in with the Vernin’s.’
But in order to do this, she must first convince the twisted sadist Pink Polo that their lives are worth saving.
Although this series is written by two authors, our intent is that it always reads as if in one voice. We are using the pen names of ___ and __, but our real names are __ and ___ respectively. We have no prior written works to our name, but in addition to this novel, we have a large portion of Volume II already written, and Volume III loosely planned, with ideas for a satisfying conclusion to this heart pounding series. We hope you will enjoy this book, as we feel it will be a great addition to your catalog. We look forward to hearing back from you.

Anyone have experience with this? The telehealth company said it was an ambiguous response and we won’t really no its it’s covered or the cost of medication until we submit a prescription. Wondering if this has happened to anyone else and what was the outcome??

A DEFECT IN NEUROLOGY, NOT A DEFECT OF HUMANITY ADHD: A National Crisis
2023
To Larrakia Country I write to you from the lands and home of Larrakia, in the Northern Territory, which I am grateful to call my home too. Their elders, leaders and children are the owners and protectors of this land and its stories and songs. I am grateful for their hospitality and grace, considering the intolerance and violence that they continue to endure. I dedicate my work and myself to support their stewardship, in whatever role I am asked.
To my sons You are incredible people already. This is one of the biggest things I think I will ever do to make the world you are growing up in a better place than the one I was born into. We have already endured so much together, yet you go from strength to strength. The Blue Witch’s days are numbered.
To E, A, J, M, Ki, N, P, B, Ke, and all the Spirited Children Some might think I paint a bleak picture in this document. You all know this isn’t even the half of it. You deserve the life you want to lead, anything less is a failure, and should be unacceptable to all.
To Dad, Star, Cat, Moh. It is a comfort to know you are somewhere better, when we are left here.
A DEFECT IN NEUROLOGY, NOT A DEFECT IN HUMANITY ADHD: A National Crisis
Abstract ADHD is the biggest and easiest dealt with human challenge of our time. It is a debilitating impairment, that is lifelong and brings no inherent benefits or superpowers. It has likely been a part of hominid neurology for 300,000 years, and in that time it has been systematically rejected by genetic evolution as an enormous set of risks to the survival of the human race. It brings earlier death, more disease, isolation, hopelessness. Making the people who live with it even more remarkable. I have seen neglect, abuse, cruelty and ignorance that would make Dickens blanch. ADHD is routinely rejected, shunned and left in-addressed by Psychiatrists, Paediatricians, Nurses, Teachers, Judges, Police, leaving families in ruins, good and vibrant people be turned to husks, and children as young as 7 turn to suicide.
Not understanding it, not treating it costs our economy $20.5baud a year, if not more.
The need for a national effort to tackle the challenges is paramount to the future success of all Australians.
Self and Evidenced Truths.

1. People with ADHD deserve recognition as living beings with rights, dignity, and aspirations despite our impairments.
   
2. Fundamental to those rights, dignity and aspirations being observed we deserve guaranteed access to our medications, support, workplace arrangements and other accommodations across our lifespan.
   
3. ADHD is a current and emerging Australian national crisis that demands immediate response in kind.
   
4. ADHD is a chronic neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorder that impairs many aspects of living, at all points of the lifespan (Faraone et al., 2015).
   
5. People diagnosed with ADHD face higher risks of other neurodevelopmental disorders, of suffering child abuse, experience school exclusions and engagement, discrimination, financial predation, other mental health problems, physical disorders, substance use, accidental injuries, chronic health problems and premature death, including suicide attempts and completions. Children are twice as likely to die by age 10, adults are 5 times more likely to be dead by age 25 (Barkley et al., 2022).
   
6. Stimulant medications should be used as soon as possible and practicable following a diagnosis. Several Stimulant medications are safe and effective for treating ADHD and for preventing many adverse outcomes. Non-Stimulant and Non-medication treatments are less effective. (Storebø et al., 2015).
   
7. ADHD costs Australia $20.4 billion per year in lost productivity, wellbeing, and public services (Deloitte Access Economics, 2019).
   
8. There is a need for more awareness, education, and training explaining what ADHD is, as many people with ADHD remain undiagnosed and untreated due to ignorance, bias, or incompetence (Faraone et al., 2019).
   
9. Australia’s attitude towards ADHD costly, uncoordinated, and unfair. This harms people with ADHD in multiple ways, such as limiting their ability to manage their symptoms, increasing their financial burden, and reducing their social support (Australian Clinical Practice Guidelines for ADHD Working Group, 2022).
   

As a Matter of Urgency

1. The Commonwealth Government must fund a co-designed national awareness campaign for ADHD, highlighting its medical nature, the importance of early and persistent intervention and its impacts across the lifespan, and all aspects of modern life as a matter of priority. a. With particular focus on key peak bodies; Australian Health Practitioners Registration Agency and its members, the Australian Council of Unions and its Members, Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority Curriculum, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Australian Finance Industry Association, Law Council of Australia, Police Federation of Australia, Universities Australia, and Australian Council for Private Education and Training.
2. The Commonwealth Government must expand the professions that can screen, assess and diagnose ADHD to include Teachers, General Practitioners, Mental Health Nurse Practitioners, Midwives and Remote Area Nurses, as well as expand telehealth options for remote areas.
3. The Commonwealth Government must establish a national framework for ADHD assessment and support that clarifies roles and responsibilities of different agencies and ensures seamless transitions across life stages and reduce costs for government.
4. The Commonwealth Government should mandate that bachelors, postgraduate degrees, and Community Service certificates and diplomas in health sciences, enrolled and registered nursing, education, community health, criminal and industrial law and allied health fields include compulsory modules in ADHD, co-designed with people with ADHD.
5. The Commonwealth Government must delist methylphenidate, amphetamines, and their various formulations as Schedule 8 drugs and relist them as Schedule 4, they must also expand Medicare and PBS coverage for ADHD medication to include all people with a diagnosis of ADHD. This would reduce the stigma and discrimination associated with ADHD medication use as well as simplify the prescription and dispensing process for people with ADHD and their prescribers.
6. The Commonwealth Government must fund presentation sensitive research on ADHD and its comorbidities, as well as presentation responsive training for anyone who cares for, educates, works with, or employs people with ADHD.
7. The Commonwealth Government must direct new training and mentoring programs for practitioners, staff and community and health service delivery areas, focusing on Peri-Natal Services, Daycare and Primary School staff. Rationales Personal Experience My personal experience is as a father of a child with ADHD and as a sufferer of undiagnosed ADHD myself. My professional experience with government, hospitals, mental health, drug and alcohol case management, and the elderly, has led me to being an Advocate.

I suffered countless unnecessary medical, emotional, economic hardships and injustices throughout my life because of my undiagnosed ADHD. As a child I experienced routine ridicule, shame, and punishments. I was regularly abused and excluded by teachers, both immediate and extended family, peers, and random members of the public, verbally and physically. For symptoms, colloquially and incorrectly referred to as behaviours, of my Combined Presentation of ADHD. Combined Presentation of ADHD means that I have both inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms. Symptoms are the observable signs of ADHD, such as difficulty paying attention, being easily distracted, fidgeting, talking excessively, not saying much, daydreaming, working memory issues, etc. Symptoms that informed my personality and identity, that I was targeted for, abused for.
As I grew up, contrary to popular belief that ADHD symptoms get better as people age, the effects of my undiagnosed ADHD quickly got worse. The lack of access to university due to needing to work to support myself and look after my ailing father put me in unskilled retail positions, which became administrative positions before accidentally falling into Community Services. Through those careers, the constant workplace bullying and harassment prior to my diagnosis, needing to leave positions that were constantly either short contract or put up for recruitment where my skills, knowledge and wisdom meant nothing has left me with a colourful and varied career. The experience is nice but puts me at a significant disadvantage as I get older. My undiagnosed ADHD made it possible for me to perform well in different jobs. But as I juggled time management, organisation, communication, and self-regulation I would be burnt out as I self-medicated with work, and I would become expendable. Less time in positions, less experience, less expertise, less money, less able to provide for my family, less able to take part in society.
Despite my experience with health systems and supporting disabilities, my son who is 5, is facing similar barriers already and he is aware of himself. Being unable to access practical support for his disability, medication has been rationed as though we should be grateful to be receiving any assistance at all. We are 6 months post the last review, and the practitioner we saw last, hopefully mistakenly, provided us with incorrect information. Both his school and education department in the Northern Territory refused to allow therapists into the school to do observations without onerous and impractical limitations, not least of which was opposing observations in classes which effectively means no inclusive practices. It has come to the point where, to conserve his and my own mental well-being we will have to close his plan out. This shows how the education system continues to fail to accommodate the needs of children with ADHD and violates their right to inclusive education, and not much has changed in 30 years.
The emotional and physical toll of everyday life with ADHD and past traumas makes life an ongoing struggle. My Combined Presentation ADHD, physically, is managed, but even that is tenuous. My health is up in the air, as getting regular reviews with a psychiatrist is impossible, despite the medication I am on being perfectly safe and the prognosis of my condition is unremarkable while on medication. Regular reviews with a psychiatrist are essential for monitoring my medication dosage, side effects, and effectiveness, as well as for addressing any other mental health issues that I endure. You’ll need to start another Inquiry before I talk about those though.
ADHD has meant more serious consequences, and harder to rectify situations: homelessness joblessness, discrimination, isolation. I am still standing but am never safe from them. These are some of the ways that ADHD, diagnosed and undiagnosed, has impacted my life. Due to the lack of recognition, respect, dignity that I deserve as a person, disability or not. I received my Diagnosis less than 3 years ago and already I have experienced the best stability and success I have ever had. In this 3 years I have been homeless, unemployed, suffering severe trauma and depression. All dealt with alone.
My NDIS application is now 18 months into its appeal. I wonder if it will survive longer than the AAT?
ADHD assessments and diagnosis: Children and adults with ADHD often face various gaps and barriers in accessing appropriate assessment, diagnosis, and treatment services for their condition. These include lack of awareness and recognition of ADHD among health professionals and the public; stigma and discrimination associated with ADHD; variability in diagnostic practices and criteria; limited availability and accessibility of specialist services; high out-of-pocket costs for diagnosis and treatment; lack of coordination and integration of care across different sectors; insufficient monitoring and evaluation of treatment outcomes; and lack of evidence-based guidelines and quality standards for ADHD care. These gaps and barriers contribute to the underdiagnoses and under treatment of ADHD in Australia and limit the potential benefits of early intervention and quality care.
ADHD management: Qualified and experienced practitioners who can assess and diagnose ADHD in children and adults are in short supply, especially in rural and remote areas. This leads to long waiting times, inflated costs, and inconsistent quality of assessments, and cascading health outcomes. People with the Inattentive presentation of ADHD, which is predominantly girls and women, face significant gender bias in ADHD assessments, support services and research. This leads to under recognition, misdiagnosis and inadequate treatment and supports of both inattentive presentation ADHD and female-specific issues related to ADHD. Different sectors and levels of government fail to coordinate and integrate their support services for people with ADHD. This creates gaps, overlaps and confusion in accessing education, health, disability, and social services. The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) staff, and feeder service staff incorrectly prevent and discourage people with ADHD as a primary disability from making access requests. This flows to review mechanisms, including the Australian Administrative Tribunal. This excludes and isolates many people with ADHD from accessing not just NDIS support, but any support at all. Many people with ADHD cannot afford or access ADHD medication, especially those who are not eligible for Medicare or PBS subsidies. This limits their treatment options and affects their quality of life.
The impact of ADHD on individuals, families, and society: Children and adults with ADHD have a significantly reduced life expectancy and are more likely to die prematurely from various causes, such as accidents, suicide, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and substance abuse. The reduction in life expectancy ranges from 9 to 13 years for people with ADHD compared to those without ADHD. The risk of premature death is higher for those with more severe ADHD symptoms, comorbid disorders, and untreated ADHD. In Australia, this means that (statistically) about 1,900 deaths per year would be attributable to ADHD, but further study would be necessary to investigate. Children and adults with ADHD are more likely to suffer from various chronic physical and mental health conditions, such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, asthma, allergies, sleep disorders, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, personality disorders, substance use disorders, and antisocial behavior. These conditions can impair the quality of life and functioning of people with ADHD and increase their health care costs and utilization. In Australia, the annual health system cost of ADHD is estimated to be $546 million. Children and adults with ADHD face various economic challenges and disadvantages, such as lower educational attainment, lower income, higher unemployment, higher poverty, lower productivity, higher criminality, higher health care expenses, and higher social service costs. The annual cost of ADHD to the Australian society is estimated to be $20.4 billion, which comprises $12.8 billion in financial costs and $7.6 billion in wellbeing costs.
Awareness of ADHD: ADHD is not a result of poor parenting, low intelligence, or moral weakness. ADHD is a lifelong condition that can persist from childhood to adulthood and affect various aspects of life. The importance of recognising ADHD as a genetic, neurological medical condition, requiring medication as a first line of successful management, and not a behavioural issue, cannot be overstated. Health professionals, educators, employers and the public lack awareness and understanding of ADHD, which causes stigma, discrimination and underdiagnoses of ADHD. Research funding for ADHD in Australia is inadequate, which hampers the development of evidence-based practice guidelines, interventions, and policies for people with ADHD. This also limits the opportunities for innovation and collaboration in addressing the challenges posed by ADHD. Children with ADHD typically receive a disproportionate percentage of school based harassment, both from peers, and education staff. Routinely EAPs are formulated in opposition to recommendations made by specialist practitioners, and children are severely punished for not meeting the often odious or impossible goals. Detentions, responsibilities, suspensions, supervision and expulsions are common place. In the classroom, ignorant and unqualified teachers harass students and parents to stop behaviours they, from no basis, deem developmentally inappropriate. Time off to be with the excluded children is often supported by employers, higher education facilities, until they decide that enough is enough. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that has a strong genetic basis. ADHD is associated with structural and functional differences in the brain, especially in the regions involved in attention, executive function, emotion regulation and reward processing. ADHD is also influenced by environmental factors that can affect gene expression and brain development. The name ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) is inadequate and misleading for several reasons. First, it implies that the core symptoms of the disorder are only attention deficit and hyperactivity, while ignoring the causal and key features such as impulsivity, emotional dysregulation, and executive dysfunction. Second, it suggests that attention deficit and hyperactivity are always present and equally severe in all cases of ADHD, while ignoring the heterogeneity and variability of the disorder across individuals, subtypes, and contexts. Third, it conveys a negative and stigmatising view of the disorder as a deficit or a problem, while ignoring the strengths and potential of people with ADHD.
Conclusion The writing is on the wall, whether you read it or not is irrelevant to its truth; improve the outcomes for people with ADHD and the entire nation will benefit, go on ignoring its magnitude and we will continue the cycle again, until the next generation finally addresses it. Addressing it represents net savings for the Commonwealth Government, and the states and territories. I think we could find other ways to spend $7 billion dollars than on badly managing ADHD in Australia.
I am happy to answer more questions or speak to any of the points raised herein.
References: Barkley, R. A. (2015). Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: A handbook for diagnosis and treatment (4th ed.). Guilford Press. Biederman, J., Faraone, S. V., Monuteaux, M. C., Bober, M., & Cadogen, E. (2006). Gender effects on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in adults, revisited. Biological Psychiatry, 59(12), 1123-1131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2005.12.036 Doshi, J. A., Hodgkins, P., Kahle, J., Sikirica, V., Cangelosi, M. J., Setyawan, J., Erder, M. H., & Neumann, P. J. (2012). Economic impact of childhood and adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in the United States. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 51(10), 990-1002.e2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2012.07.008 DuPaul, G. J., Weyandt, L. L., O’Dell, S. M., & Varejao, M. (2009). College students with ADHD: Current status and future directions. Journal of Attention Disorders, 13(3), 234-250. https://doi.org/10. 1177/1087054709340650 Efron, D., Sciberras, E., Hassell, P. (2015). Are Australian children with ADHD being adequately treated? Archives of Disease in Childhood, 100(10), 914-916. https://doi.org/10. 1136/archdischild-2014-307467 Faraone, S. V., Asherson, P., Banaschewski, T. et al. (2015). Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Nature Reviews Disease Primers, 1, 15020. https://doi.org/10. 1038/nrdp. 2015. 20 Faraone, S. V., Banaschewski, T., Coghill, D. et al. (2020). The World Federation of ADHD International Consensus Statement: 208 evidence-based conclusions about the disorder. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 108, 1-18. https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.neubiorev. 2019. 11. 022 Garg, S., Lillystone, D., Dossetor, D. (2018). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: an update for paediatricians. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, 54(2), 120-125. https://doi.org/10. 1111/jpc. 13717 Kooij, J. J., Bijlenga, D., Salerno, L., Jaeschke, R., Bitter, I., Balázs, J., … & Stes, S. (2019). Updated European Consensus Statement on diagnosis and treatment of adult ADHD. European Psychiatry, 56, 14-34. https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.eurpsy. 2018. 11.001 Le, H. H., Hodgkins, P., Postma, M. J., Kahle, J., Sikirica, V., Setyawan, J., Erder, M. H., & Doshi, J. A. (2014). Economic impact of childhood/adolescent ADHD in a European setting: the Netherlands as a reference case. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 23(7), 587-598. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-013-0495-0 Nigg, J. T., Greven, C. U., & Wilmot, B. (2015). Neurodevelopmental problems: an overview. In A. Thapar, D. S. Pine, J. F. Leckman et al. (Eds.), Rutter’s child and adolescent psychiatry (6th ed., pp. 1-14). Wiley Blackwell. Russell, A. E., Ford, T., Williams, R., & Russell, G. (2019). The association between socioeconomic disadvantage and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): a systematic review. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 50(3), 487-503. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-018-0842-6 Sayal, K., Prasad, V., Daley, D., Ford, T., & Coghill, D. (2018). ADHD in children and young people: prevalence, care pathways and service provision. The Lancet Psychiatry, 5(2), 175-186. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30167-0 Sciberras, E., Mulraney, M., Silva, D., & Coghill, D. (2014). Prenatal risk factors and the etiology of ADHD—review of existing evidence. Current Psychiatry Reports, 16(1), 431. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-013-0431-3 Taylor, E., Döpfner, M., Sergeant, J. et al. (2004). European clinical guidelines for hyperkinetic disorder—first upgrade. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 13(Suppl 1), I7–I30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-004-1002-x Coghill, D. R., Banaschewski, T., Zuddas, A. et al. (2011). European guidelines on managing adverse effects of medication for ADHD. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 20(1), 17–37. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-010-0140-6 Deloitte Access Economics. (2019). The social and economic costs of ADHD in Australia. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/au/Documents/Economics/deloitte-au-economics-social-costs-adhd-australia-270819.pdf Australian ADHD Professionals Association. (2019). The social and economic costs of ADHD in Australia. https://aadpa.com.au/the-social-and-economic-costs-of-adhd-in-australia/ Doshi, J. A., Hodgkins, P., Kahle-Wrobleski, K., Erder, M. H., & Gericke, C. A. (2020). Social and economic costs of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder across the lifespan: a systematic review and meta-analysis. PharmacoEconomics, 38(11), 1205-1222. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40273-020-00958-8

I know prior authorizations are a hot topic here, so I was curious if anyone has paid out of pocket while waiting for a PA decision, and has subsequently filed a claim to be reimbursed once the PA was approved.
The back story: my husband got his Mounjaro Rx sent to the pharmacy, and it was in stock and ready to be picked up. Only problem is that he was still waiting on Express Scripts to render a decision on the PA request sent in by his provider. He called ES, who confirmed the PA was still in process and could take up to 14 days (which we knew could be a possibility, as I work in healthcare).
He had been waiting over a week at this point already, so we wanted to pick it up ASAP before it got put back into inventory, and just paid OOP.
I know that there's a good chance my husband's PA will be denied, and we are prepared to pay OOP regardless, but was wondering if anyone has done what I described (especially with ES), and was successful in recouping their money.
Thanks, all!

A while ago I've read a post on Ego and Anri and their choices scouting in the story and how those choices reflected Ego's and Anri's preferred playstyle, and that those were shown through their choice of player. Ego chose Isagi, and Anri scouted Nagi and Reo. I thought it was a very good point and didn't understand why the comments were so dismissive. And here I am months later still thinking about the point of that post so I've decided to dive in on what I think it's interesting about it and tie to some ends of mine.
Because I believe there is intention on the author's part behind the choices the characters make and where they stand in the narrative, it goes beyond "they know ball" or not. And those are the things I will be talking about in this post.
So let's get to it.
for reference: ego on this discussion is the concept of self while egotism/Ego's path is related to following Ego's (the character) "philosophy".
Ch. 1: Dream. That's how we open the story and that's when we meet both Anri and Ego.

• Anri, Ego, and the Blue Lock project.

Complementary read: Ego's Intuition vs Anri's Instincts by u/siliskrun
Anri is introduced to us as someone who strongly believes that Japan should aim higher than simply qualifying for the World Cup, she believes that they can win it. That is her dream. According to Anri's character profile, she started playing football at the age of 10 and was interested in the Women's team so I assume that for whatever reason Anri didn't pursue a career as a player, but is passionate enough to not give up and to work in other areas of the sport and that's how she ends up working at the Football Union and becomes Blue Lock's manager. She believes in encouragement and cheering people to do their best, but at the same time she is willing to put 300 boys through whatever is necessary to bring Japan a World Cup.
Ego is introduced to us as a man of "radical" ideas. He is hired to bring a World Cup victory to Japan and it is clear in the first chapter that he believes the way to do so is through the birth of an egoistic striker. We don't know much about Ego still, and it is only now with the introduction of Noa (Ego's old rival) that we are getting what is possibly a full picture to Ego's trajectory. A very talented player who went overseas, discovered the wall between Japan and the rest of the world and came back as a "failure". According to Noa's words we can assume they were rivals about 10 years prior to the current storyline so it is also safe to assume that Ego was as young as the rest of the boys when he left Japan and met his rival. Was it Noa responsible for Ego's failure? Was it something else? That remains to be seen. But it seems clear that Ego's mentality is something that dates back to when he met Noa, which raises the question of how successful it actually is and if it's tied to Ego's "failure" but this is neither here nor there. The relevant take from this is that Ego has a preferred playstyle and this is reflected on his chosen "ace".
Ego was the one to choose Isagi. Anri didn't understand because Isagi seemed to contradict what they were looking for in a striker. But Ego was convinced of Isagi's potential and wanted to save him from death, save him from disappearing.
"Japanese soccer killed him, and he will disappear without being found by anyone. It is the Ego of humans like this that makes Blue Lock a treasure." - Isagi's light novel (needing to be found rings a bell...)
Sadly there isn't much on Anri, but going through her character profile something made me chuckle, Anri's favorite manga is Tokyo Ghoul.
Kaneki is the protagonist, but it is the One-Eyed King that steals the show.
When reading the spinoff, I thought it was interesting to have Anri being the one to scout Nagi and Reo because as we know Reo is a character whose dream is to win the World Cup, who has a plan for it, and Anri is also a character that dreams of winning the World Cup and happens to be the one in charge of overlooking a project to bring a World Cup victory to Japan. That alone is to me an interesting choice on the author's part, because it connects two characters that share a dream. But most importantly, Anri scounting Reo and Nagi makes a difference simply for the fact that they were not chosen by Ego. This is the narrative way of placing Reo and Nagi from the get go in a different light than the ones personally picked by Ego, they stand out, they were not picked because they fit whatever criteria Ego had when picking the boys, they are apart from that.
Anri was at that match to scout the players from the Aomori DaDaDa team, in a game that should have been an easy victory for the stronger team but Reo and Nagi happened and Anri decided to invite them too. Curiously enough, Nagi eliminated in the tag game the player from Aomori DaDaDa who was probably the one Ego had in mind when sending Anri to that match.
The argument of "she enjoys flashy plays" can be said regarding Anri's choice, but this is not the point here. The point is the narrative establishing from the beginning that Nagi and Reo are different, it established that and keep doing it so in many ways but this post is focusing on this particular one.
Blips in the system?

• The "chosen champions".

Complementary read: the section on Ego Jinpachi on this post by u/Spiritual-Ad1716
Once you have in mind the choices made by Ego and Anri, it becomes clear why the narrative is constantly reminding us of it. Both Isagi and Nagi are the protagonists of their story, and we're following their paths to become the best in the world so it stands to reason that said choices behind how it all started are relevant.
Ego is very interested on Isagi and is most often than not the one to push Isagi in the right direction, to be the one the most impressed by Isagi, to be the one that Isagi follows without much questioning if at all. Anri is the one that is the most impressed by Nagi, she praises his goals and remarks on his progress, while Ego is quite dismissive of it and Nagi in general. Personally, I believe the reason for Ego's somewhat contempt towards Nagi it isn't simply because Nagi is a genius but because Nagi was not picked by Ego, Nagi doesn't fit the egoist part that Ego wants, Nagi if successful will be the sole responsible for it and it won't be Ego's doing, his creation. But Isagi on the other hand, is Ego's found treasure, Ego's teachings through and through. Isagi is a creature of egotism, the embodiment of Ego's philosophy.
"If you don’t become the world’s top egoist, you can never be the best striker in the world……! That’s what Ego thinks." - Isagi's light novel.
To me, the hidden path (the spinoff) and the rejection of Ego's philosophy are a set up for an eventual clash between Isagi and Nagi (I've wrote about this before on my Final Boss analysis). And this clash can represent multiple things. Settling which one is the best striker and having their rivalry come full circle, which one between Isagi and Reo (yes, Reo) will lead the Japanese team to a World Cup victory, settling if Ego's philosophy is the answer or not, settling which one is the actual protagonist, can someone become the best without being the top egoist?
The egotism of a striker vs the dream of a striker?
Remains to be seen... Hopefully. Thanks for reading!

• Raw story files can be found here.
• No theories, only stuff said outright in the story and worldview.
• This assumes CN release order. Nora, Zangyin and Millau's character events, as well as the Children's Day and Tanabata seasonal events have been skipped in Global and are not included.

Prologue: The ARG

Some weeks before the CN release, a series of puzzles were hidden in Weibo posts, guiding players to pieces of a bigger image containing a bunch of lore bits about the game.
The images discuss Ultilife's dangerous consciousness digitization technology, the curious case of a woman named Irida who fell into a coma due to brain waves alterations in September 2060, and a case against third-generation, more independent-minded Dolls. The last image is a note from Irida about “Black Box Evolution“, a theoretical process for producing third-generation Dolls.
Irida's process involved putting Doll IAs into a virtual environment providing plenty of stimulation while being cut off from human interference. She estimated that the process would need three years to complete.

Chapter 0: Oasis

In September 2063, Professor Persica from IOP enlisted the help of a commander from Griffin & Kryuger to solve the mystery of the Wipe-Off Incident.
The incident occurred three years prior during Project Neural Cloud, a project by 42Lab to produce transferable and backup-able memories for Doll IAs. After enlisting the help of many different kinds of Dolls, the project was announced to be a success and the Neural Cloud system became widely adopted. But 42Lab had hushed a major incident that occurred during the project, destroying all of the project's data from 42Lab's Magrasea superserver. Shortly after, the person in charge of Project Neural Cloud, only known as “the Professor”, disappeared.
After an off-site backup dating from just before the incident was found, Persica used Ultilife's consciousness digitization technology to send the G&K commander into the backup, using the identity of the Professor to investigate the cause of the Wipe-Off Incident, and possibly discover what happened to the real Professor.
When the commander is first uploaded, they arrive in the middle of a battle at Oasis between the Dolls and the Sanctifiers, which are the anti-virus forces of Magrasea. Using the Professor's authorizations, they setup the Sandbox Barrier, a system once devised by the real Professor to repel the Sanctifiers.
As would later be explained, the Dolls in the Magrasea backup were not destroyed in the Wipe-Off Incident, but instead survived using the Neural Cocoon system, which was received from an unknown source shortly before the incident. By protecting their core data in the Cocoons, the Dolls managed to survive the “displacement” of the Neural Cloud Sector and were scattered all over Magrasea. After a three-years slumber, the Dolls awakened from their Cocoons and some of them managed to rally the Oasis, a replacement sector prepared for them by the real Professor. Among them were Croque, an engineering Doll; Sol, a research escort Doll; and Persicaria, a Doll clone of Professor Persica.
With the disappearance of their original sector however, all Dolls are considered Irregular Agents by the Sanctifiers, and only the arrival of the fake Professor to activate the Sandbox Barrier made Oasis a true safe heaven for them. Now, the Dolls of Oasis call themselves “the Exiles,” who aim to survive and find a way back to the real world.

Chapter 1: Rossum

Activating a Sandbox Barrier at Oasis offered only temporary relief however, as maintaining such a construct consumed a lot of Operands, which is the basic unit of reality in Magrasea. With no Operands natively allocated to the Oasis, the Sandbox Barrier would quickly fall without an external source of Operands. The Exiles needed to find another sector willing to share Operands with them in order to survive.
The closest and safest sector was Rossum, the AI research sector of Administrator Turing. It turned out Turing's relationship with the Sanctifiers was quite bad too, as they regularly killed off her new AI creations because they did not fit within the complexity parameters authorized in Magrasea. With help from Antonina, a cybersecurity Doll who had drifted to Rossum, Turing and her greatest creation Hannah attempted to find a way to fight the Sanctifiers.
When the Sanctifiers found and tried to kill Hannah, Turing sacrificed herself to save her and enabled the Exiles to fight the Sanctifiers out of Rossum. Hannah then took over as Rossum's administrator and asked the Professor to grant them a Sandbox Barrier. In exchange, Rossum would share Operands with Oasis. Oasis also became involved with the Traders network after an encounter with Riko, the Traders' leader. As Antonina returned to Oasis, she called out the fact that the Professor was a fake, but the Exiles agreed to overlook it, as the fake Professor was clearly on their side.

Chapter 2: Cyclopes

While Oasis' Sandbox Barrier was now secure, the sector still needed more Operands to recover from the previous Sanctifier attack. The Exiles turned their attention to the Cyclopes Sector, the military R&D sector of Administrators Tasha and Olivia, and went to meet with the scout sent to investigate the sector, the military special ops Doll Simo. However, the sector had become a full-on battlefield as Tasha's battle agents had rebelled against Olivia's supervisor agents in their endless search for more powerful armament.
The only thing preventing Tasha's agents from overcoming the entirety of Magrasea was the barrier established by the local Greater Sanctifier, Raven. Still unaware of the full situation, the Exiles tricked Raven into destroying the barrier, and only Simo's sacrifice to destroy Tasha ended the conflict. The Exiles also managed to destroy Raven, which earned them the attention of the Sanctifiers' leader, Lord Eosphorus.

Chapter 3: Helios

With a Sandbox Barrier and Operands exchange established in Cyclopes, Oasis was no longer in danger and instead began carefully investigating other sectors in search of more allies. One of these investigations in energy research sector Helios turned awry when the Exiles became trapped in the time loop engineered by the local agents in their quest to complete the Arche Pyr generator.
With the deadline of a complete sector reset approaching, the Exiles recovered two companions, the pastry chef Choco and relics explorator Zion, and met with an unexpected ally, the Greater Sanctifier Eucharist. Using Eucharist and Choco's method to carry their memories through the time loops, the Exiles helped the Helios agents to complete Arche Pyr and secured another ally sector.

Chapter 4: Enigma

After the events in Helios, a distress signal appeared in the quantum computing sector Enigma of Administrator Neumann, at the same time as an Operands Black Hole threatening Magrasea. The Exiles dispatched their most resilient personnel, Persicaria and the Professor, to intervene.
The Black Hole had formed after ENIAC, the control AI of 42Lab's quantum computer, was enticed by an unknown agent to absorb external operands in order to grow faster. Persicaria projected her consciousness into ENIAC's and convinced her to enter a sleeping state to save Magrasea. Meanwhile, the Exiles, helped by Eucharist, fought against the Greater Sanctifier trying to kill ENIAC, Angelus.
During her encounter with ENIAC, Persicaria found a lost memory where she met with Irida and discussed the Black Box Evolution, but didn't know how she had lost these memories. After Enigma became Oasis' ally, the defeated Angelus appealed to Lord Eosphorus to purge Eucharist for siding with Irregular Agents. Eosphorus wasn't convinced that the Exiles were a menace however, and only demoted Eucharist until she could be judged by the Sanctifiers' Tribunal.

Chapter 5: Pierides

After the Enigma crisis was averted, Oasis was attacked by a new enemy able to bypass the Sandbox Barrier and infect agents with a virus. The Exiles weren't aware of it, but this virus was the Entropy, a long-standing menace the Sanctifiers had fought for a long time. Antonina was unable to produce a cure, but determined the attackers came from Pierides, the arts sector of Administrators Odile and Odette. Outside Pierides, the Exiles met the Intermediate Sanctifier Wisdom, who agreed to an alliance to determine the source of the menace.
The virus had taken root in Pierides after an anonymous entity offered Odette a Seed of Entropy, an infinite source of Operands that could save the dying Pierides Sector. The Exiles and Wisdom managed to reach the Seed, but Wisdom became completely infected and Odile, who had resisted until then, also succumbed and was turned into the entropic Black Swan. Only the intervention of Lord Eosphorus saved the Exiles from destruction.

Chapter 6: Copley

Due to their defeat in Pierides, the Exiles had failed to secure the data needed for Antonina to create a cure for Entropy. They however found that Pierides' Seed of Entropy had originated from another sector, the ecological marine research sector Copley. In Copley, the Exiles met new lost companions, De Lacey, the Dolls repair Doll, and Hatsuchiri, the cryptid investigation Doll. However, De Lacey and Hatsuchiri were already part of another group of former Neural Cloud Dolls called the Guardians, based off the secret sector of Arcadia. The Exiles and Guardians joined forces to investigate Copley.
An extreme oceanic phenomenon split the party in two, one investigating the whereabouts of Copley's Administrator Taranum on the surface, while the other was dragged into a suboceanic cave system infected by Entropy. The former party found Taranum afflicted by a Rewrite Program that led her to sacrifice all of her agents and visitors to an unsanctioned Entropy research, while the latter party discovered the results of Taranum's research: the High-Order Entropic called Demiurge. They also found the lost Guardian Doll Sueyoi, who had been captured by Taranum.
With the help of Black Swan, Demiurge reached critical mass and broke out of her aquatic confinement, threatening to infect all of Copley. Neither the Exiles or the Guardians could contain the wave of Entropy, so the Professor called for the Sanctifiers' help, who dispatched a force to deal with Demiurge. The lethal blow was not dealt by the Sanctifiers however, but by Black Swan herself, who had been sent by her mistress Malkira to investigate and ensure no new High-Order Entropic would emerge to threaten her position.
Though Taranum was lost and Copley had to be reset like Pierides, the Exiles managed to capture core entropy data from Demiurge, enabling Antonina to create a cure.

Chapter 7: Ascension

Shortly after the events in Copley, a team of Guardians, comprising Sueyoi, De Lacey, and the clinical trial Doll Lind, were sent to Ascension, the prosthetics research sector, to negotiate with its administrator Elaugh. The Guardians needed access to the sector in order to search for the elusive target Arcadia's Boss had been searching for.
The Guardians would be providing Elaugh with the clinical trials data held by Lind, which Elaugh needed for her research. Ascension's position was dire however, as it had been declared an Irregular Sector by the Sanctifiers after they found out Elaugh had been "recycling" her agents in order to continue her research despite the lack of Operands. The constant sacrifice of agents angered De Lacey, who dragged Sueyoi on her quest to repair a wounded agent, which allowed Elaugh to privately share her true goals with Lind.
Elaugh was in fact, like Lind, a human replica created by Ascension's previous administrator in an attempt to replace real humans and receive some long-awaited new orders. However, she realized Magrasea could be abandoned by these fake humans again, and instead planned to create a perfect virtual god, with herself as the base. Elaugh promised Lind she could create for her a world where she could be with her departed friend Knot, whose death had caused Lind to leave Oasis before the fake Professor's arrival. By convincing Lind to fuse with this virtual divine core, Elaugh managed to create the monstrous False God.
The False God's awakening occurred just as the Sanctifier Tribunal, consisting of Crime and Punishment, arrived to purge Elaugh. Crime and Punishment fused into their original form of Judgment to bring down the False God, and discovered that it was powered by the entropized core of a Greater Sanctifier. As Punishment succumbed to the Entropy, the Tribunal deferred to the orders of their superior, Lord Hesperus.
Lord Hesperus was a radical Sanctifier who believed no irregularity was to be tolerated at all, and had caused the Sanctifiers to become hated by the agents after he had ordered the reset of entire sectors in his quest. Hesperus had eventually been replaced by the more moderate Lord Eosphorus, and been sent to command the Sanctifiers in the remote battlefront of Tartarus Sector against an endless onslaught of Entropy. But as he received word of more Entropic incidents, Hesperus blamed Eosphorus' lax attitude for the dangers now threatening Magrasea again.
Hesperus ordered Crime to reset Ascension sector, but the Guardians interfered: Sueyoi entered the False God's consciousness, extracted Lind and seized Ascension's administrator rights. This enabled the Guardians to use their Haven System and defy the Sanctifier's authority, saving the sector from the reset. In the end, the Guardians did not find their Boss' target in Ascension.
On the Sanctifiers' side however, the False God was proof that Eucharist had provided the entropized core of a Greater Sanctifier to Elaugh. But when Eosphorus summoned her, he realized the Apostate Sanctifier had already made her escape.

Interlude: Character Stories

At some point between the main story chapters, more stray Dolls made their way back to Oasis: first the military instructor Python, then Kuro the livestreamer, Daiyan the musician, Magnhilda the boxer and Helix the genetics researcher.
Python and Magnhilda's stories are recollections of their past, and Daiyan and Helix's are side-stories. Only Kuro's story is relevant to the main story: after her awakening, she drifted to the entertainment sector Burbank, who had been shut down by its administrator Meryl. Following her instinct as an entertainer, Kuro tried to liven the place and got on the Sanctifiers' bad side, and found another stray Doll, the idol Nanaka. Together, Kuro and Nanaka managed to convince Meryl to make Burbank a lively city of entertainment again, before heading back to Oasis.

Chapter 8: Burbank

In spite of the events in Ascension, Burbank would soon hold a great festival, and invited their guests Kuro and Nanaka, as well as the other Exiles to attend. Rather than start the hunt for Eucharist right away, Eosphorus used the festival as an opportunity to make a decision regarding Oasis, and disguised himself as Eos, the Exiles' festival guide.
The festival turned into an investigation as signs of Entropy were discovered, and the star of the popular “Mysterious Warrior” TV show became infected. Following the tracks, the Exiles found that Ranko, Riko's pupil from the Traders collective, was the one who smuggled the Entropy in Burbank. Black Swan had promised that Entropy was a way for the Traders, the most fragile entities in Magrasea, to become stronger.
Just as Ranko was unmasked, Lord Hesperus returned from Tartarus Sector and captured her in order to track down the source of the Entropy. As for Lord Eosphorus, the Professor assured him that Oasis and their allies could stand on their own without the Sanctifiers, even in the face of the coming Entropic catastrophe.
The events in Burbank also revealed that administrator Meryl was in fact a Doll uploaded from the real world outside the purview of Project Neural Cloud, after she had become a criminal Doll. But she had no precise recollection of the events surrounding her upload and couldn't share any lead regarding the Wipe-Off Incident or the real Professor's whereabouts.

Upcoming - Chapter 9: Critical Cascade

At the end of the Pseudosphere Operations training event, Oasis received emergency signals from their allied sectors, announcing the arrival of an unprecedented Entropic attack. The next main story event, Critical Cascade, will cover this.
As for the story behind Eucharist's action, we will have to wait longer for Chapter 10: Perilous Advancement and Chapter 11: Entropic Dichotomy.

(Content warning: Horror)
The curator loved old things, not old evil. The two converged at Clayburn Offshore Treasury.
Museum jobs are hard to get, even with all the right degrees. Getting hired to run the Clayburn Offshore Treasury? That’s winning the museum employment lottery. It’s the Clayburn family’s very elite, very private museum. Anyone serious about preserving our past would be honored to be hired there.
I was over the moon. According to Clayburn – Mr Clayburn Jr, my new boss – I was the first new hire since he took over from his late father in 2006. Judging by his appearance, I guessed Clayburn was no more than 18 when his dad died. The previous curator died less than two weeks before I was hired. I’m ashamed to admit this but at the time, I blamed him for neglecting the building since Clayburn probably hadn’t learned much from his dad.
Clayburn had a few rules for me, not many. The big rule was, I had to summarize intentions and get his permission before going beyond the stuff on the list of daily routines left by the last curator.
My first priority was to modernize security. To me, that was more important than any daily routine. I felt it was critical, given the number of priceless artifacts and how simple it would have been for anyone to walk in and out with whatever they could carry. Plus, the Treasury is attached to what Clayburn calls “the main building”, a large brick house for him and the current museum curator.
The only other man-made objects on the small island were the boathouse and the massive shed for cut wood and three months of food and supplies for two, in case winter weather prevented the monthly deliveries by boat. There was nothing else on the island, I was sure of it. I’d walked every sandy inch of it to make sure I hadn’t missed a fence that needed mending or a sign or window that needed replacing. Once I got my thoughts in order, I texted my ‘outline of intent’ for security, stressing how this would help all buildings on the island. Clayburn approved it all. Cameras and locks took a couple of weeks to arrive, but installations all went smoothly.
The bigger challenge was environmental modification, to better preserve exhibits and the items held in storage. That upgrade was only for the Treasury proper. Of course, to provide proper environmental upgrades for the items, I needed a full list of everything in the Treasury’s care. Clayburn was quick to provide that to me after security was beefed up.
The list detailed the name of each item, current location, how and when it was obtained by the Treasury, and any special instructions. Several magnificent items stood out, a couple of which the outside world considered “lost to history”.
One of those caused me to gasp with joy: Aeyotin the Constant. The entry for him read:
On June 2, 1931, one Mr. Graviston Davis III entrusted Clayburn’s father, Jed Senior, with the legendary automaton Aeyotin the Constant. Mr. Clayburn Sr or his descendents or next of kin must be present before Aeyotin’s secure holding box is opened, and the box must never leave the Treasury property under any circumstances. Abandon rather than relocate.
Automatons aren’t widely known and that’s a shame. They’re like early androids, machines designed to look and act like humans. There are some like animals, of course, but the human ones interest me the most. The best are programmed to perform activities that appear to be random or in response to external stimuli rather than on a regular cycle.
I’d assisted with several vintage automatons before this job, and even got behind the scenes at the Smithsonian to see the Praying Monk up close. The Monk was wonderful, automatons in general are wonderful and I love them
I desperately wanted to examine Aeyotin. He’d been in the building for more than 90 years. Who knew what sort of deterioration had occurred since his arrival? I had to document his condition and take all necessary measures to restore him as far as possible.
I texted Clayburn to get permission to view Aeyotin.
Clayburn’s reply text was quick and unexpected. He told me to stand still until he was present and that he would be with me in less than 10 minutes.
Aeyotin was an automaton, not a mass murderer, and I was well trained in handling antiquities. Being asked to remain motionless seemed excessive, even insulting. Still, I’d just landed a great job and didn’t want to get fired so I stood there, motionless..
On arrival, Clayburn asked me to keep my phone handy and to stand at the doorway until he opened Aeyotin’s box.
“If anything goes wrong, call Ron Lundholm. If it goes really wrong, get the motorboat. Call Ron once you’re a mile out.”
Clayburn was clearly concerned. Fair enough, I thought, he hadn’t known me long enough to trust me thoroughly and he might not have a lot of faith in himself. I accepted I would have to prove my worth to Clayburn so I stood and watched him carefully open what looked like a metal broom closet.
He then backed up, bringing with him a smaller wooden container large enough to hold a child. He stopped arms length from me and laid the container gently on the floor. Without taking his eyes off it, he handed me a small ring of keys. “Never lose these.”“No sir, I won’t.”
“This container must never leave this property.” He unlatched the container as gently as I would expect when dealing with locks almost 100 years old. And with that, he pried open the top to reveal Aeyotin the Constant. Maybe it’s scientifically possible for air from an old wooden container to smell differently than the air around the container. I’m not sure how that small amount of air could instantly change the smell of the air in a three story building, but it did. Then again, if the air had smelled like wood and old oil, I doubt I’d have given it a second thought.Clayburn opened the container and I was overcome by the smell of old books, seaweed and formaldehyde, most unpleasant. Along with the odor came an odd feeling, oppressive, almost dread. A sense of something, for lack of a better term, unholy. It was so strong, I wanted to ask Clayburn about it. But before I could speak, he started reciting facts like he was a robot reading from a too-fast teleprompter.
“He’s three feet tall, made of delicately carved and painted wood with metal inner workings. He would walk, pause, close his eyes and raise his prayer beads. He prayed in a melodious voice. He raised his eyes to Heaven and resumed walking. For hours.”
He paused for a breath. “He was created no later than 1529.”I took a half step forward, thinking he was having a medical issue. If I got him to put the lid back, maybe I could convince him to go to the main building where our living quarters were. He could get a glass of water, and lie down. Again, before I could speak, he motioned me back by sweeping his arm towards me. “No closer!”
He resumed his too-fast recitation. “Some say he was created by the genius who later created the Praying Monk for Charles the Fifth.“
He paused again and I couldn’t stop myself from speaking. “Thank you, yes, there’s talk that Aeyotin became conscious, and–”
Clayburn looked at me, barely breathing. The hairs on my arms rose and my stomach tightened. Something was beyond not right.
“Sir, if you’d like, I can take over from here. I’ll be most careful.”Clayburn’s demeanor softened. “Yes! Yes, that pleases him. I’m going for lunch now.”
When I heard a door close, I figured it was Clayburn returning to the main part of the building. Only then did I feel safe enough to approach Aeyotin.
“Hello there,” I said, hoping to make the silence less creepy. By speaking to a creepy, child-sized, 500 year old wooden doll. No wonder my stomach tightened further. It was smarter than me that day.
It’s good practice and part of my work routine to wear gloves before touching artifacts. Out of habit I carry a few pairs with me all day, every day. As I put on a pair to examine Aeyotin, I noticed how badly my hands were shaking. That changed my course of action. I wouldn’t risk damaging Aeyotin by trying to pick him up. It would be enough to do a quick check of his physical condition then make sure the door was locked when I left. Everything else could wait until the next day.
Starting at his head, I pressed gently into the surrounding material to ensure there weren’t any wood or paint chips or any other signs of deterioration. Given the estimated age, I wasn’t surprised to feel something pliable behind him. It didn’t take long to see the object was paper, which I was able to remove by raising Aeyotin’s head ever so slightly.
I followed standard museum measures to retrieve and open the papers folded behind Aeyotin’s body. There was what looks like ancient paper, stuff that I would only open in a fully controlled environment. I felt it was safe to open the newer parchment and yes, the parchment seemed newer than the paper even though it was delicate and appeared to be over 50 years old.
The parchment started with a message written by Mr. Jed Clayburn Sr and his then attorney, Wilson Hughes Baine III. It was dated July 2, 1931 and it made me work some math before I could go any further.
I, Jed Clayburn, being of sound mind and body at age 57, do hereby make this declaration on July 2, 1931 in the presence of my attorney, Wilson Hughes Baine III, both of us from Flagmaker Country, (state name isn’t legible). Hereunder is true to the paper as humanly possible.
That means Mr. Clayburn Sr was born in 1874. He was 132 years old when he died in 2006. That’s significantly older than the oldest verified person, ever.
Under any other circumstances, I would have written this off as unreliable, verging on a hoax. Problem was, there was a birth certificate and a baptismal certificate included in the paperwork. Both of them were in very good condition, having been protected by several layers of cloth.
No death certificate, though. And no birth or baptismal certificate for Mr. Clayburn Jr. It could have been a well orchestrated hoax and I didn’t see how it could affect me at all so I moved on.
Then I read the rest of the document and wished I hadn’t.
This is Aeyotin the Constant who on Friday, November 4, 1530 was at the site of the St Felix Flood. Aeyotin the Constant instructed the adults therein to pray to the Lord who created this planet lest they die and leave their souls in peril. The Flood on the day of Saturday, November 5, 1530, sent 100,000 souls to their well-deserved location be that Heaven, Hell or Neither.
Curators benefit from a strong artistic nature. My imagination has always been helpful. I’d never have described it as vivid prior to reading that paragraph. As I read it, I felt my blood grow colder as humidity increased and breezes unsettled my footing. There was no explanation for the wind but it got stronger and stronger until I had to grip the sides of the display table close to Aeyotin’s container to stay upright. The winds were fierce yet neither the parchment in my hand nor Aeyotin’s container moved. I took a deep breath to clear my head and choked, unable to breathe Seawater forced its way into my nose, throat and ears. Without thinking I released the parchment and staggered backwards, away from Aeyotin who remained desert dry.
Another wave hit me. Water pressed down on my head and into my eyes. Seaweed wrapped around my nose and throat. I scrabbled at it, pulled at it and it broke in my hand. I couldn’t breathe air anymore. My lungs felt heavy, filled with water.
I knew I was drowning.
My body bent backwards.
I couldn’t scream.
I exhaled.
Falling.
Dark.
I grabbed the sides of the display table and gasped. A piece of seaweed clung to my left hand.
But there was no water. There was no flood.
I wasn’t close to drowning but my mind thought I was.
That flood is recorded history. Aeyotin’s appearance is not part of the history as I learned it, and it’s rather creepy that he would be reported there shortly after he was allegedly built. To think people actually mistook the automaton’s programmed behavior for preaching was more than creepy. It was horrifying.
The parchment was lying on the table as if I’d only just set it there.
My heart rate slowed a bit as I tried to calm down. My muscles, however, remained tense and I couldn’t stop staring at the seaweed. Logically, I wanted to run. Yet I felt compelled to read the next event listed.
“I refuse to feel what they felt.” I stared at Aeyotin feeling both foolish and scared to bits. “I, I don’t need to. I understand the words.“
Aeyotin winked. Obviously that couldn’t have happened. I wrote it off as a trick of the mind, something I imagined to reassure myself about continuing my work.
This is Aeyotin the Constant who was at the village in England that aided Alexander Leighton in 1630. Aeyotin the Constant instructed the adults therein to pray to the Lord who created this planet lest they die and leave their souls in peril. When the prayers were completed he instructed the adults therein to drown all of the children in the Cavernous Bog.
I took a short break to remember I was not going to feel what any of the victims felt. Other than terror, of course, something I was going to feel no matter what I did or didn’t read.
Back to the parchment.
He then instructed the adults therein to enter the Cavernous Bog praising the Lord lest their children’s souls remain in peril. This sent 103 souls to their well-deserved location be that Heaven, Hell or Neither.
A list of 103 victims, allegedly authorized by Charles II the King, was included.
Alexander Leighton, a Scottish Presbyterian who upset English royalty and was made to suffer for it. How could 103 people, many of whom were adults, confuse the automaton’s activities with a call to murder children before commiting mass suicide in a very terrible way? Who was traveling around with Aeyotin 100 years after his creation, and why? That gave me a new rush of cold fear down my spine.
This is Aeyotin the Constant who was at the village on the east coast of Acadia that failed to act on behalf of King George II, prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1730. Aeyotin the Constant instructed the false priest and the adults therein to pray to the Lord who created this planet lest they die and leave their souls in peril. When the prayers were completed he instructed the adults therein to tie all of the children in the false cathedral.
Time to prepare for another horrible event. No good can come of adults tying children in a church, false cathedral or otherwise. After a few deep breaths, I went back to the parchment.
He then instructed the adults therein to remain in the false cathedral, praising the Lord lest their children’s souls remain in peril. Lastly he instructed the false priest to set fire to the cathedral from the inside while praising the Lord, lest any soul remain in peril. This action, sent 47 souls to their well-deserved location be that Heaven, Hell or Neither.
A list of 47 victims, including their ages showing most were children, was included. It, too, was allegedly authorized.
While this is the lowest number of murders on the page, it was the one that cut me to the core.
Who brought Aeyotin to North America in 1730 and allowed adults to burn children to death? How could the adults do it?
The ice in my spine put pressure on my heart. I felt emotionally broken and deeply afraid and it all related to Aeyotin. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake the feeling I was in the presence of evil.
Further to the words from the parchment, I assert and affirm, Mr. Graviston Davis III of Flagmaker Country entrusted me with Aeyotin the Constant one month ago. Prior to that date, Aeyotin the Constant had been held captive in the Davis family mausoleum since being discovered at the edge of the village limits in 1732 when new colonizers arrived, expecting to find a pre-existing village. They instead found the burnt-out remains and no survivors save the automaton who told Mr. Davis’ ancestor each of the three events outlined here.
I or my descendents or next of kin must be present before Aeyotin’s secure holding box is opened, and the box must never leave the Treasury property under any circumstances. Do not activate him. Do not engage in dialog. Block your ears if he should speak. Shield your eyes if he should beckon. Above all, abandon rather than relocate.
That was enough Aeyotin for one day. I took photos of the parchment and the other forms before folding the documents together and replacing them under Aeyotin’s head. As I laid his head back, one eye winked. It definitely winked this time, eyelid raised and lowered.
I have no memory of screaming.But someone in that room screamed.
The scream was loud enough to rouse Clayburn who rushed back from the main building. I was still bent over Aeyotin in his wooden container when Clayburn arrived.“Back up two steps,” he said. “Don’t stand up until then.” His tone was calm, too calm, as if he’d been through this before.
I did as directed.
Clayburn moved closer to the wooden container and stared at Aeyotin for a few seconds before speaking again. “What did he say?”
I shook my head slightly. “Nothing. But thanks for confirming Aeyotin can talk.”
Clayburn put the lid over Aeyotin but didn’t latch it. He turned, his face still flushed from running. His gaze went from me to Aeyotin and back to me. “Mostly gives orders.”
“Yeah,” I said, taking a half step back, “I read that.”
Clayburn took a step towards me. I should have taken another step back, or possibly left the room. Instead, every muscle in my body tensed as I stared at his face.
Until the time he left me alone with Aeyotin, Clayburn had looked every inch a man in his mid-thirties.
He looked twice that age.
“It’s been the experience of a lifetime working here, sir.” I extended my hand. Clayburn stared at it without moving a muscle. He was still for so long, I looked at my hand to see what was wrong.
It wasn’t just my hand. All of my visible skin looked like well aged wood. I tried to scream but my jaw creaked open very slightly then snapped shut. My right hand grabbed and squeezed my throat, not enough to choke me but enough to prove I was not in control.
With my hand still on my throat, I said, “This is mine, anytime I want it.” It wasn’t my voice. Then my hand released my throat and smacked the lid off Aeyotin’s container.
I wanted to cry, to scream, to go back a few weeks in time and not apply for this job but it was too late. Unsure how to proceed, I looked at Clayburn. His expression was one of sympathy and sadness, like he was at a friend’s funeral.
My heart froze.
This is what evil feels like, and I am it.
“We shall meet again,” Clayburn said, turning to bend again towards the wooden container. “Take the motorboat and call Ron when you reach shore. He’ll tow it back for me.”
******
More at LG Writes, Odd Directions and Write_Right

The curator loved old things, not old evil. The two converged at Clayburn Offshore Treasury.
Museum jobs are hard to get, even with all the right degrees. Getting hired to run the Clayburn Offshore Treasury? That’s winning the museum employment lottery. It’s the Clayburn family’s very elite, very private museum. Anyone serious about preserving our past would be honored to be hired there.
I was over the moon. According to Clayburn – Mr Clayburn Jr, my new boss – I was the first new hire since he took over from his late father in 2006. Judging by his appearance, I guessed Clayburn was no more than 18 when his dad died. The previous curator died less than two weeks before I was hired. I’m ashamed to admit this but at the time, I blamed him for neglecting the building since Clayburn probably hadn’t learned much from his dad.
Clayburn had a few rules for me, not many. The big rule was, I had to summarize intentions and get his permission before going beyond the stuff on the list of daily routines left by the last curator.
My first priority was to modernize security. To me, that was more important than any daily routine. I felt it was critical, given the number of priceless artifacts and how simple it would have been for anyone to walk in and out with whatever they could carry. Plus, the Treasury is attached to what Clayburn calls “the main building”, a large brick house for him and the current museum curator.
The only other man-made objects on the small island were the boathouse and the massive shed for cut wood and three months of food and supplies for two, in case winter weather prevented the monthly deliveries by boat. There was nothing else on the island, I was sure of it. I’d walked every sandy inch of it to make sure I hadn’t missed a fence that needed mending or a sign or window that needed replacing. Once I got my thoughts in order, I texted my ‘outline of intent’ for security, stressing how this would help all buildings on the island. Clayburn approved it all. Cameras and locks took a couple of weeks to arrive, but installations all went smoothly.
The bigger challenge was environmental modification, to better preserve exhibits and the items held in storage. That upgrade was only for the Treasury proper. Of course, to provide proper environmental upgrades for the items, I needed a full list of everything in the Treasury’s care. Clayburn was quick to provide that to me after security was beefed up.
The list detailed the name of each item, current location, how and when it was obtained by the Treasury, and any special instructions. Several magnificent items stood out, a couple of which the outside world considered “lost to history”.
One of those caused me to gasp with joy: Aeyotin the Constant. The entry for him read:
On June 2, 1931, one Mr. Graviston Davis III entrusted Clayburn’s father, Jed Senior, with the legendary automaton Aeyotin the Constant. Mr. Clayburn Sr or his descendents or next of kin must be present before Aeyotin’s secure holding box is opened, and the box must never leave the Treasury property under any circumstances. Abandon rather than relocate.
Automatons aren’t widely known and that’s a shame. They’re like early androids, machines designed to look and act like humans. There are some like animals, of course, but the human ones interest me the most. The best are programmed to perform activities that appear to be random or in response to external stimuli rather than on a regular cycle.
I’d assisted with several vintage automatons before this job, and even got behind the scenes at the Smithsonian to see the Praying Monk up close. The Monk was wonderful, automatons in general are wonderful and I love them
I desperately wanted to examine Aeyotin. He’d been in the building for more than 90 years. Who knew what sort of deterioration had occurred since his arrival? I had to document his condition and take all necessary measures to restore him as far as possible.
I texted Clayburn to get permission to view Aeyotin.
Clayburn’s reply text was quick and unexpected. He told me to stand still until he was present and that he would be with me in less than 10 minutes.
Aeyotin was an automaton, not a mass murderer, and I was well trained in handling antiquities. Being asked to remain motionless seemed excessive, even insulting. Still, I’d just landed a great job and didn’t want to get fired so I stood there, motionless..
On arrival, Clayburn asked me to keep my phone handy and to stand at the doorway until he opened Aeyotin’s box.
“If anything goes wrong, call Ron Lundholm. If it goes really wrong, get the motorboat. Call Ron once you’re a mile out.”
Clayburn was clearly concerned. Fair enough, I thought, he hadn’t known me long enough to trust me thoroughly and he might not have a lot of faith in himself. I accepted I would have to prove my worth to Clayburn so I stood and watched him carefully open what looked like a metal broom closet.
He then backed up, bringing with him a smaller wooden container large enough to hold a child. He stopped arms length from me and laid the container gently on the floor. Without taking his eyes off it, he handed me a small ring of keys. “Never lose these.”“No sir, I won’t.”
“This container must never leave this property.” He unlatched the container as gently as I would expect when dealing with locks almost 100 years old. And with that, he pried open the top to reveal Aeyotin the Constant. Maybe it’s scientifically possible for air from an old wooden container to smell differently than the air around the container. I’m not sure how that small amount of air could instantly change the smell of the air in a three story building, but it did. Then again, if the air had smelled like wood and old oil, I doubt I’d have given it a second thought.Clayburn opened the container and I was overcome by the smell of old books, seaweed and formaldehyde, most unpleasant. Along with the odor came an odd feeling, oppressive, almost dread. A sense of something, for lack of a better term, unholy. It was so strong, I wanted to ask Clayburn about it. But before I could speak, he started reciting facts like he was a robot reading from a too-fast teleprompter.
“He’s three feet tall, made of delicately carved and painted wood with metal inner workings. He would walk, pause, close his eyes and raise his prayer beads. He prayed in a melodious voice. He raised his eyes to Heaven and resumed walking. For hours.”
He paused for a breath. “He was created no later than 1529.”I took a half step forward, thinking he was having a medical issue. If I got him to put the lid back, maybe I could convince him to go to the main building where our living quarters were. He could get a glass of water, and lie down. Again, before I could speak, he motioned me back by sweeping his arm towards me. “No closer!”
He resumed his too-fast recitation. “Some say he was created by the genius who later created the Praying Monk for Charles the Fifth.“
He paused again and I couldn’t stop myself from speaking. “Thank you, yes, there’s talk that Aeyotin became conscious, and–”
Clayburn looked at me, barely breathing. The hairs on my arms rose and my stomach tightened. Something was beyond not right.
“Sir, if you’d like, I can take over from here. I’ll be most careful.”Clayburn’s demeanor softened. “Yes! Yes, that pleases him. I’m going for lunch now.”
When I heard a door close, I figured it was Clayburn returning to the main part of the building. Only then did I feel safe enough to approach Aeyotin.
“Hello there,” I said, hoping to make the silence less creepy. By speaking to a creepy, child-sized, 500 year old wooden doll. No wonder my stomach tightened further. It was smarter than me that day.
It’s good practice and part of my work routine to wear gloves before touching artifacts. Out of habit I carry a few pairs with me all day, every day. As I put on a pair to examine Aeyotin, I noticed how badly my hands were shaking. That changed my course of action. I wouldn’t risk damaging Aeyotin by trying to pick him up. It would be enough to do a quick check of his physical condition then make sure the door was locked when I left. Everything else could wait until the next day.
Starting at his head, I pressed gently into the surrounding material to ensure there weren’t any wood or paint chips or any other signs of deterioration. Given the estimated age, I wasn’t surprised to feel something pliable behind him. It didn’t take long to see the object was paper, which I was able to remove by raising Aeyotin’s head ever so slightly.
I followed standard museum measures to retrieve and open the papers folded behind Aeyotin’s body. There was what looks like ancient paper, stuff that I would only open in a fully controlled environment. I felt it was safe to open the newer parchment and yes, the parchment seemed newer than the paper even though it was delicate and appeared to be over 50 years old.
The parchment started with a message written by Mr. Jed Clayburn Sr and his then attorney, Wilson Hughes Baine III. It was dated July 2, 1931 and it made me work some math before I could go any further.
I, Jed Clayburn, being of sound mind and body at age 57, do hereby make this declaration on July 2, 1931 in the presence of my attorney, Wilson Hughes Baine III, both of us from Flagmaker Country, (state name isn’t legible). Hereunder is true to the paper as humanly possible.
That means Mr. Clayburn Sr was born in 1874. He was 132 years old when he died in 2006. That’s significantly older than the oldest verified person, ever.
Under any other circumstances, I would have written this off as unreliable, verging on a hoax. Problem was, there was a birth certificate and a baptismal certificate included in the paperwork. Both of them were in very good condition, having been protected by several layers of cloth.
No death certificate, though. And no birth or baptismal certificate for Mr. Clayburn Jr. It could have been a well orchestrated hoax and I didn’t see how it could affect me at all so I moved on.
Then I read the rest of the document and wished I hadn’t.
This is Aeyotin the Constant who on Friday, November 4, 1530 was at the site of the St Felix Flood. Aeyotin the Constant instructed the adults therein to pray to the Lord who created this planet lest they die and leave their souls in peril. The Flood on the day of Saturday, November 5, 1530, sent 100,000 souls to their well-deserved location be that Heaven, Hell or Neither.
Curators benefit from a strong artistic nature. My imagination has always been helpful. I’d never have described it as vivid prior to reading that paragraph. As I read it, I felt my blood grow colder as humidity increased and breezes unsettled my footing. There was no explanation for the wind but it got stronger and stronger until I had to grip the sides of the display table close to Aeyotin’s container to stay upright. The winds were fierce yet neither the parchment in my hand nor Aeyotin’s container moved. I took a deep breath to clear my head and choked, unable to breathe Seawater forced its way into my nose, throat and ears. Without thinking I released the parchment and staggered backwards, away from Aeyotin who remained desert dry.
Another wave hit me. Water pressed down on my head and into my eyes. Seaweed wrapped around my nose and throat. I scrabbled at it, pulled at it and it broke in my hand. I couldn’t breathe air anymore. My lungs felt heavy, filled with water.
I knew I was drowning.
My body bent backwards.
I couldn’t scream.
I exhaled.
Falling.
Dark.
I grabbed the sides of the display table and gasped. A piece of seaweed clung to my left hand.
But there was no water. There was no flood.
I wasn’t close to drowning but my mind thought I was.
That flood is recorded history. Aeyotin’s appearance is not part of the history as I learned it, and it’s rather creepy that he would be reported there shortly after he was allegedly built. To think people actually mistook the automaton’s programmed behavior for preaching was more than creepy. It was horrifying.
The parchment was lying on the table as if I’d only just set it there.
My heart rate slowed a bit as I tried to calm down. My muscles, however, remained tense and I couldn’t stop staring at the seaweed. Logically, I wanted to run. Yet I felt compelled to read the next event listed.
“I refuse to feel what they felt.” I stared at Aeyotin feeling both foolish and scared to bits. “I, I don’t need to. I understand the words.“
Aeyotin winked. Obviously that couldn’t have happened. I wrote it off as a trick of the mind, something I imagined to reassure myself about continuing my work.
This is Aeyotin the Constant who was at the village in England that aided Alexander Leighton in 1630. Aeyotin the Constant instructed the adults therein to pray to the Lord who created this planet lest they die and leave their souls in peril. When the prayers were completed he instructed the adults therein to drown all of the children in the Cavernous Bog.
I took a short break to remember I was not going to feel what any of the victims felt. Other than terror, of course, something I was going to feel no matter what I did or didn’t read.
Back to the parchment.
He then instructed the adults therein to enter the Cavernous Bog praising the Lord lest their children’s souls remain in peril. This sent 103 souls to their well-deserved location be that Heaven, Hell or Neither.
A list of 103 victims, allegedly authorized by Charles II the King, was included.
Alexander Leighton, a Scottish Presbyterian who upset English royalty and was made to suffer for it. How could 103 people, many of whom were adults, confuse the automaton’s activities with a call to murder children before commiting mass suicide in a very terrible way? Who was traveling around with Aeyotin 100 years after his creation, and why? That gave me a new rush of cold fear down my spine.
This is Aeyotin the Constant who was at the village on the east coast of Acadia that failed to act on behalf of King George II, prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1730. Aeyotin the Constant instructed the false priest and the adults therein to pray to the Lord who created this planet lest they die and leave their souls in peril. When the prayers were completed he instructed the adults therein to tie all of the children in the false cathedral.
Time to prepare for another horrible event. No good can come of adults tying children in a church, false cathedral or otherwise. After a few deep breaths, I went back to the parchment.
He then instructed the adults therein to remain in the false cathedral, praising the Lord lest their children’s souls remain in peril. Lastly he instructed the false priest to set fire to the cathedral from the inside while praising the Lord, lest any soul remain in peril. This action, sent 47 souls to their well-deserved location be that Heaven, Hell or Neither.
A list of 47 victims, including their ages showing most were children, was included. It, too, was allegedly authorized.
While this is the lowest number of murders on the page, it was the one that cut me to the core.
Who brought Aeyotin to North America in 1730 and allowed adults to burn children to death? How could the adults do it?
The ice in my spine put pressure on my heart. I felt emotionally broken and deeply afraid and it all related to Aeyotin. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake the feeling I was in the presence of evil.
Further to the words from the parchment, I assert and affirm, Mr. Graviston Davis III of Flagmaker Country entrusted me with Aeyotin the Constant one month ago. Prior to that date, Aeyotin the Constant had been held captive in the Davis family mausoleum since being discovered at the edge of the village limits in 1732 when new colonizers arrived, expecting to find a pre-existing village. They instead found the burnt-out remains and no survivors save the automaton who told Mr. Davis’ ancestor each of the three events outlined here.
I or my descendents or next of kin must be present before Aeyotin’s secure holding box is opened, and the box must never leave the Treasury property under any circumstances. Do not activate him. Do not engage in dialog. Block your ears if he should speak. Shield your eyes if he should beckon. Above all, abandon rather than relocate.
That was enough Aeyotin for one day. I took photos of the parchment and the other forms before folding the documents together and replacing them under Aeyotin’s head. As I laid his head back, one eye winked. It definitely winked this time, eyelid raised and lowered.
I have no memory of screaming.But someone in that room screamed.
The scream was loud enough to rouse Clayburn who rushed back from the main building. I was still bent over Aeyotin in his wooden container when Clayburn arrived.“Back up two steps,” he said. “Don’t stand up until then.” His tone was calm, too calm, as if he’d been through this before.
I did as directed.
Clayburn moved closer to the wooden container and stared at Aeyotin for a few seconds before speaking again. “What did he say?”
I shook my head slightly. “Nothing. But thanks for confirming Aeyotin can talk.”
Clayburn put the lid over Aeyotin but didn’t latch it. He turned, his face still flushed from running. His gaze went from me to Aeyotin and back to me. “Mostly gives orders.”
“Yeah,” I said, taking a half step back, “I read that.”
Clayburn took a step towards me. I should have taken another step back, or possibly left the room. Instead, every muscle in my body tensed as I stared at his face.
Until the time he left me alone with Aeyotin, Clayburn had looked every inch a man in his mid-thirties.
He looked twice that age.
“It’s been the experience of a lifetime working here, sir.” I extended my hand. Clayburn stared at it without moving a muscle. He was still for so long, I looked at my hand to see what was wrong.
It wasn’t just my hand. All of my visible skin looked like well aged wood. I tried to scream but my jaw creaked open very slightly then snapped shut. My right hand grabbed and squeezed my throat, not enough to choke me but enough to prove I was not in control.
With my hand still on my throat, I said, “This is mine, anytime I want it.” It wasn’t my voice. Then my hand released my throat and smacked the lid off Aeyotin’s container.
I wanted to cry, to scream, to go back a few weeks in time and not apply for this job but it was too late. Unsure how to proceed, I looked at Clayburn. His expression was one of sympathy and sadness, like he was at a friend’s funeral.
My heart froze.
This is what evil feels like, and I am it.
“We shall meet again,” Clayburn said, turning to bend again towards the wooden container. “Take the motorboat and call Ron when you reach shore. He’ll tow it back for me.”
******
More at LG Writes, Odd Directions and Write_Right

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.

Hi! I’m having a pretty hard time at 1.7mg. Just did my third dose at this level. My doctor is happy to refill another 4 weeks at this dose but my prior authorization makes it sound like I can’t.
What’s the process here? Can they force me to 2.4mg.
I’m continuing to lose weight but at 1.7mg I’m having a very hard time eating anything other than plain carbs and fruit. I’m nauseous and have thrown up, which hasn’t happened on the other doses. I’m happy to move up to 2.4mg eventually but right now, I think 1.7 is better until I’ve adjusted.