The Compound
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Read between September 17 - September 19, 2025
3%
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I could see that she didn’t actually look like me: she was just thin and blond too.
Mikalia Withrow Cutler
Woop dee doo
4%
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There were several rules at the compound. The first was that it was forbidden to discuss that the show was in fact a show, or that we had seen the show before. It ruined the experience for the viewer and the participants, we had been told. The second was that we couldn’t discuss our life outside of the compound unless we had been instructed to do so. The third was that it was forbidden to harm another resident. There were other rules, but they wouldn’t come into effect until the boys arrived. We all understood that if we broke any of these rules we would be punished.
5%
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I was small and soft by comparison.
Mikalia Withrow Cutler
How dainty of you
5%
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I remembered her saying, showing the steaming straightener to the other girls. She had shared it on the first day she received it, but after that had locked it in a drawer and did her hair only at night, when the others were asleep. The other girls would wake up, frizzy-haired, and look at her resentfully.
Mikalia Withrow Cutler
What a strange thing to do lol
5%
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and lavishly complimenting each other every time we tried something on.
Mikalia Withrow Cutler
Feels like they might not always be complimenting each other…
6%
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I remembered that I look clown-like when I smile too widely. I tried for a moderate curling of my lips, like I had just recalled a joke.
Mikalia Withrow Cutler
Can't imagine caring thaaaat much about my smile lol
6%
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Intelligence can be artificial, but charm is always real, and Susie had that in spades.
6%
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but bitchiness will out,
Mikalia Withrow Cutler
Hell yeah it will lmao
7%
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I noted the relative flatness of everyone’s stomachs, and found that, while Sarah had the most toned abs, I was a sure contender for the shapeliest hips.
Mikalia Withrow Cutler
I couldn't… care less…
8%
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we ate tacos outside and covered our mouths as we spoke.
Mikalia Withrow Cutler
Oh to be a woman. No rest.
8%
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you stayed in the compound only if you woke in the morning next to someone of the opposite sex. If you slept alone, you would be gone by sunrise.
9%
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I glanced again at the marks on his chest and face.
Mikalia Withrow Cutler
I think he fought and maybe killed the one who got "lost"?
13%
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I thought that we had lost some crucial bit of power, not from the act of being judged, but by showing that it meant something to us.
13%
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I wanted to be like the boys, who seemed to have forgotten that it happened the moment they stepped away. Was it that the boys didn’t care as much about their appearance, or because they were already so sure of their worth that external opinion meant nothing to them?
23%
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Unexpectedly, Gav reached forward and seized Tom in a tight, fierce hug. “Thanks, man,” he said. Tom said nothing, but he let Gav cling to him.
Mikalia Withrow Cutler
He was part of the fight somehow
55%
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but I would have insulted his mother a thousand times over, and the mother of everyone in the compound, if it meant having my hair back as it had been.
Mikalia Withrow Cutler
Can't relate
61%
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Mine, I thought.
Mikalia Withrow Cutler
Getting a littlr cray
71%
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She reemerged with a gallon of water, her tiny arms struggling with its weight.
Mikalia Withrow Cutler
Her *tiny* arms struggling with ONE GALLON
76%
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People did die after the show though—there was a long list now of people who’d taken their lives after they returned home—but that was a separate issue.
Mikalia Withrow Cutler
Oh shit