If conservative Christians think gender transition and crossdressing are sins, what is the most extent of gender non-conforming behavior and fashion presentation allowed without sinning? Are makeup, nail polish or purses allowed for men?
Are men allowed to have long hair and women have buzz cuts?
Are people allowed to borrow clothes from the opposite gender?
What about the fact that fashion changes across history and in different places? High heels used to be for men, but are now exclusively for women. Many cultures have skirts for men (kilt, Greek foustanélla.) Fashion trends are basically arbitrary, so that means that as long as a piece of clothing is labeled by society 'for men' and 'for women'--e.g. a dress designed for men, for male bodies, a suit for women, for female bodies--then it's okay?
But then if you admit that fashion is fluid, that means the doctrine is guided by cultural changes instead of the other way around; would it therefore be more consistent if Christians adopted universal dress codes for all Christian men and women regardless of time period and place?

Hi all, love and lurk this sub, throwaway account created for this post. This is a doozy, so if you make it through this, I thank you. If it's too much for you, I'd love to get your thoughts on just the last paragraph, "THE LAST STRAW."
My husband and I have been together for four years now, and ever since we got engaged two years ago, things have gone south with my JNMIL. Some examples: the day I started planning my wedding and sharing my to-do list with her, all excited to plan with her, she called me naysaying "sweetie you can't do this on your own, you should get a wedding planner" (meanwhile my husband and I ended up planning it all in three months); she designed a wedding invitation for us, which I didn't like, and she was butthurt about it for months (not even giving me the option to redesign it or considering what I would like); we were planning our wedding to be either in Dec or May so my BIL, who was in grad school, could make it, and she pushed for May so that SHE wouldn't be cold; when I said that I'd rather not have a May wedding because I wanted to wear a poofy, heavy wedding dress, she said "well why don't you wear a lighter style?"; when I was shopping for wedding dresses and sending her photos to get her opinion, she had told me there was one that she loved, and then she went and told my then-fiance "I didn't really think it looked good on her," making me wonder why she lied to me (just seemed like a mean girl thing to do...; and when I finally chose my wedding dress, she was mad that I didn't send her a photo, making the whole thing all about herself, not even being happy that I found the dress of my dreams; she was also disparaging about my culture's traditions and cuisine in many ways throughout the process. For example, after my bridal shower, she told my then-fiance "I wish they'd play music that WE like," regarding the cultural music that we play (instead of trying to get to know my background and appreciating where I come from, of course). Because of all that she had done during our wedding planning process, I became quiet in my relationship with her (after attempting many times to explain to her all that she had done to upset me, which maddened her, because she is not used to talking things out), so I became less close with her. Right before our wedding, she called me saying "I don't know what's going on between us, I'm sorry, I just want you guys to be happy," which led me to just forgive and forget. After our wedding, however, many friends came up to me and said she was sulking during our reception and she was making dirty faces at our ceremony while she was under the arc with us.
Fast-forward a couple of years. We had a baby in November, and everyone was at our house for Thanksgiving, five days after I gave birth. I had noticed that she was soaking frozen chicken in water, and I made a comment that we shouldn't do that for the frozen turkey for the holiday, because it creates bacteria. Her response: "I've been doing it this way for 40 years." I calmly showed her the USDA page and other sources online that say you shouldn't wash poultry, and I repeated it a few times over the span of 1-2 days in response to her going over how she was going to prepare our meal, especially because I was breastfeeding and I wanted to be mindful of infection. Several times of her repeating that she was going to soak the turkey in water, I sternly said, "please don't do that, it's not safe," and it turned into a screaming match, including her saying "I'm done. You do it!!!!" It was horrific and embarrassing, and you'd think that she'd have some patience and understanding with a first-time mom who just gave birth a few days prior. Again, she came upstairs, gave me an empty apology while I was breastfeeding, and we moved on.
The entire time that she was staying with us in November, there were a number of comments made, all WITHIN A MONTH OF ME GIVING BIRTH. 1- how are you possibly going to handle work and motherhood at the same time? 2- rolling her eyes regarding me breastfeeding (she exclusively did formula with her kids) 3- whenever it was time to feed our baby, she suggested she bottle-feed him, and I'd reply, "no thank you, if you do that, I have to pump, and it's a lot of extra steps, so I'd rather just directly breastfeed for the convenience and the bonding factors," and she'd just repeat this suggestion over and over again, which was so frustrating because she was essentially ignoring my explanations. 4- making comments about how I'm feeding our baby too much (he's a healthy percentile, she just wants to criticize). ETC.
Fast-forward to this past April. My husband and I are flying with our baby for the first time and are extremely nervous. We are spending 4 days with his family and four days with my family. Of course, there are comments made, this time about my parents, but I let it slide. Comments include "I didn't like that your mom brought over rice for Passover," meanwhile, they don't even keep the rules of Passover. Something else was that JNMIL spent an entire day cooking my BIL's girlfriend's cuisine and learning about it, but she has never once done that with my cuisine (she is French, I am Iranian - husband says JNMIL is quite xenophobic), and in fact once threw out a plate of my mom's home-cooked food right in front of her at a family gathering. She also had her phone on loud on facetime during a family gathering, and I asked her to please lower it because someone was giving a speech, and she was horribly offended. Another time, she was taking my car to go grocery shopping, and I casually said "drive safe!" and she was offended by this comment and went to vent to my husband. Just insane, irrational behavior coming from her, even from my well wishes.
THE LAST STRAW: two weeks prior to us staying at their home, I asked JNMIL if my friend who lives close by can come visit. She said no bc her sister and BIL were visiting that day, and she wanted family time. I said, "okay maybe I'll just go get dinner with her or go for a walk, when are they coming over and I'll schedule that around them," and this was highly offensive to her apparently? She called me saying how "aggravated she was" and then totally gaslighting me and saying "it's fine! she can come!" Acting like I was crazy for thinking it wasn't fine with her... I was highly confused because she just sent me a series of texts saying how it's not fine, but now I'm realizing that she just didn't want me to take our baby away from her house so my friend could meet him and she was switching her story up last-minute. Okay whatever. The day comes for my friend to visit. JNMIL had made a coconut cheesecake and before my friend arrived, I said "hey, can friend have a slice, it was so good?!" She replies, "no it's already packed up and in the garage." I reply "oh I can go get it." She replies, "there are only a few slices left and I'd like to save that for my boys." I reply, " well I didn't have my slice earlier today, can she have mine?" She yells "NO" and storms upstairs. I say to FIL "okay can we serve her some coffee and tea? She's driving an hour to come see us after a 12-hour-long workday," and he goes "yeah of course." I say "great! she's spending so much time to come see us and I just want to make her feel welcome." BIL goes upstairs to JNMIL and tells her that I was implying that she is not being hospitable. She comes back downstairs and sits in the dining room with BIL and starts venting to my husband about me, saying how I was saying how inhospitable she was being (which she was, and no I wasn't) and "how dare she say we are inhospitable, there is not a more welcoming home than ours" (while providing absolutely no food or snacks to my friend and not doing anything to make me feel like my friend is welcome in her home), while BIL starts saying that "if she wanted to make her friend feel welcome, don't put that on us, OP should have gone to get snacks for her friend herself." Husband says that I was working all day long and that I didn't have time, and that it's not a big deal to serve my friend some snacks and coffee, as it's common courtesy. It turns into a whole 45-minute vent session about me to my husband. I'm in shock, especially because MIL and BIL are saying contradictory things and I don't even know how to start to defend myself. MIL's other issues come out now as well, all bottled up and nothing I had heard before, so I'm in even more shock. She talks about how she was in the hospital for a day and she didn't get a text or call from me (husband defends me saying that I didn't want to bother her while she was there, and that I was asking him how she was doing nonstop). MIL also says "why is she working while you are here at our house, I thought we were family" and husband says "she already took off four days last week to be with us and with her family, she can't take off anymore" and instead of appreciate how I'm trying to balance family time, breastfeeding, and working, she goes on and on about how "she was off for two days with us and for four days with her parents, I thought we were family, why didn't take take off today and tomorrow to be with us," and by this point, my husband is speechless at how petty she is being, and my friend is 5 minutes away, so to save him from this, I enter the dining room, boob in baby's mouth, and I calmly say "what's going on?" Silence from MIL and BIL, because IT'S SO EASY TO TALK BEHIND SOMEONE'S BACK AND IT TAKES COURAGE TO APPROACH SOMEONE F2F, WHICH NEITHER OF THEM HAVE. I ask a few more times, and BIL says "I just think it's rude that you put it on us to welcome your friend, if you wanted to give her food, you should've gone to get it yourself," and I say "okay what else?" MIL gives a disgusted look and yells "what do you mean what else?" and I said, "I just heard you trash-talk me to husband for 45 minutes, so what else is on your mind?" And she YELLS "that's it, what do you mean?" and she storms upstairs like a child after giving me an incredulous, disgusted look. I'm shaking from crying, and at this point, my friend enters the house (FIL let her in) and is a lovely, friendly, happy face, but I'm crying so hard from how much trash I just heard said about me (later on, MIL says she stormed upstairs because she didn't want to talk in front of my friend, but now in hindsight, I realize that if that was the case, she could've just calmly said that and asked to continue talking later instead of throwing a temper tantrum). I apologize to my friend that this is what she walked into and that we didn't have anything for her, so can I please take her out to dinner. She says "of course," and we leave with husband while I'm crying. Once I return, JNMIL comes to me and gives me an empty "I'm sorry, can we start over?" and I'm way too soft, so after saying "I mean everything I heard you say was really hurtful, but yeah we can do that," and she replies "I think the problem is that I just don't feel a connection with you," and I should have said, "that's not an excuse for trash-talking someone like that based on absolutely nothing," and she starts to victimize herself. I want none of it and she's not understanding me, so I just let it go, in hope of enjoying our last day on vacation with family. I tell her "okay, we can start over," and that's it. BIL pretends nothing ever happened and goes about his business like a child, not even acknowledging the shit he just stirred between his mom and SIL for absolutely no reason (he is 26). I have forgiven her for this, but I won't forget how she treated me and my friend. In addition, I don't appreciate the awkward position she put my husband in, trash-talking his wife and mother of his child, while I was within earshot, and making him defend me, and for such an unnecessary thing, too.
A week after returning home, husband gets a call from JNMIL and FIL about how they are worried that my parents are going to become the "primary grandparents." Husband says "WTF are you talking about?" In-laws are absolutely insane. All my parents have done is include them and prioritize them in events, group chats, everything. He convinces them that my parents admire, love, and respect them, and that they are just making up stories in their heads with no evidence. I overhear this conversation and I can't believe my ears. It turns out, in-laws are paranoid due to the fact that we are planning to move to the tristate area, where both my parents and in-laws live. In-laws had been planning to retire where we currently live for the past 20 years. So now they are scrapping their plans for this, not because they want to be close to us, but because they don't want my parents to be the "primary grandparents." They are incredibly paranoid, jealous, and rude. What's more is that FIL lied about a hot job offer he received in the city that husband and I currently live, in order to guilt us into staying here.
Fast-forward to now, two months after this phone call. I didn't hear from either JNMIL or FIL or BIL on my first ever mother's day. No text or call. Baby is 6.5 months, and I haven't received a single message this whole time about how I'm doing. I've been back to work for 2.5 months, and they haven't asked me how I'm handling work and motherhood, or if I need anything. I guess my question is, should I reach out? Should I just walk away? I've vented to my husband enough about them, and he is fully in agreement with me regarding their behavior and mean words. He says that this is just how they are and they won't change. They are incredibly antisocial, passive-aggressive, narcissistic, cynical, and negative. Ever since I've given birth, it's been pure vitriol and discouragement, rather than empathy and support. They are in their late 60s, so I don't know if they will ever change their ways.
I know this has been so much. I really needed to vent here. However, any words of advice would be appreciated. If there's anything you see that I've done wrong, please point it out, too.

Hey guys, looking to purchase an empty bottle or nearly empty bottle of Kilian Pearl Oud.
Thanks!

In todays video Nika said she traveled 3-4 hours to get wherever she was today (I mean we know this a lie ) but you mean to tell me you went all that way without a prepared diaper bag for your baby. No bottle ? That baby had no bottle. Nika said she would stop and get one for her but it should be “back there”… what’s back there Nika a bottle of spoiled formula ?? Empty dirty bottle ? So after coming thy distance for that time that baby had no food /hydration ? And then you left them all in that truck with no air and no door handles ???

EDIT: Thanks everyone, I'll get back to you, but I think I'm going to try parafilm M first to get a seal. If that doesn't work, I will let you know and buy an empty bottle. Thanks!
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Hey everybody, I have a strange request. I am looking for an empty Side Effect bottle. Mine has a seal leak and I want to decant it into the same bottle. If anyone happens to have an empty one just lying around please let me know!

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The title is very self-explanatory. Instead of reeling from the frustration, I will convey all of my feelings here in this anonymous posting platform. I do not know if how you will take this post, but if you are interested in my very demeaning life, then I appreciate you, random Redditor.
So where do we start? Ah yes, my childhood. My life as a kid on a typical strict, Asian (Filipino, to be specific) household was very dull and monotonous. As kids enjoy their childhood by spending time with their friends, playing, and discovering new things in their early stage of life. This was not the same case for me. My parents were very strict when it comes to grades, to the point where "strict" is an understatement. I drowned from the countless hours of reading our learning materials, had advanced mathematics lessons with my father, and remained in my room throughout the day. The cycle was repetitive; wake up, study, eat, study, study, study, sleep, you know what's next. Not to mention that they made me join ALL of the extracurriculars our school offers.
I never wanted any of this. I just want to live my life as a young human, where I get to socialize with people within my age. My parents forced me to excel academically, even if I wanted to. As I progressed to higher grade levels, the pressure just got worst. A test with more than 5 mistakes is considered "low", and they would shout and sweat the living sh*t out of me. They called me names, an idiot, an illiterate, a good-for-nothing. What pains me more is that they invalidate my efforts, compared me to my classmates and their friends' children. It feels like I was not worth anything. Fast forward at the end of elementary, it was one of the most traumatizing years of my life. The pressure in academics to graduate as a batch Valedictorian was draining, as they wanted me to graduate that way. I almost had no sleep during weekdays, I can't even play, I can't even enjoy my weekends as my companion were books, books, and books. I did graduated as valedictorian though, although it means nothing to me. It feels empty, as it was just a product of something I never wanted to be in the first place. I'm afraid that this cycle would continue throughout my life. I gave up everything. My own happiness, my hobbies, my comfort. Everything.
But it feels like I don't have a choice. We're poor. We are drop dead financially. It's the only way I can get out of poverty. As someone living in the Philippines where the cost and quality of living is equally bullsh*t, it's the only way out and have a comfortable life, to say the least. It is the glorified Filipino dream, as they like to say it. There's not a single day where I don't feel anxious and restless. The perpetual fear of being unsuccessful in the future poisons my heart.
Also...
I never had any friends. I spent my entire life existing in solitude. I never experienced to have a friendship that lasted more than 3 years. I got used to it, however, as I progressed as a teenager, this was a heavy blow to me. Those past friends of mine you ask? They just treated me like some sort of convenience to them. They would only approach me if they need something. I exerted effort to make them feel appreciated and valued as a friend, but this was never the same case for them. Once they had their fill, they would leave.
The most heartbreaking things that a past friend of mine cut me off because "they need to focus on their academics". They cut me off, but never their circle. We've been friends for 3 years, we've talked from day to evening, shared countless stories, and even made a little original character lore while we are at it. They were my best friend. The fact that they were willing to cut me off but not her old friends made me dumbfounded. Am I not enough? Am I not that much of a significant part of their lives to easily dump me like that? It made me feel like total garbage. A complete mess.
Despite all of this, someone made me feel loved. In spite of all my past dilemmas, she accepted me for who I am. Eventually, I developed feelings for her, and I eventually confessed. She accepted my confession. For the first time, I've never been so happy in my entire life.
That's what I thought. I did everything for her.
The same cycle happened. I'll leave the interpretation to you.
I'm tired of existing. I'm so tired of going through the same thing over and over again. It's dehumanizing.
I hope you guys will never experience this. You guys deserve the best in the world. Stay healthy, rest lots, and maintain good relationships.
Thank you for taking your time reading. It's really hard to bottle up emotions. Pardon me.
-some random senior high schooler with existential crisis

I was a bit of a shopaholic a while back basically a few years after I started working. I have reduced my shopping a lot. I stopped buying makeup, nail polishes, creams, perfumes, random stuff, markers, pens and stationary.
But I can't stop buying clothes, I buy less than I did before (I could buy more than 10 items at once) and I don't buy things that I don't absolutely love or that fit me well. But I still have a hard time not buying anything, I have tons of clothes, I don't need more but I still buy a few items per month, it's like there's always something new and different that I like, and since what I bought before wasn't things I loved or fit me well, I feel like I still need better clothes.
Has any of you successfully stopped buying clothes you don't need? Any tips?

So, now that’s it’s summer and I finally have time (teacher) wedding planning is in full force for two months. We’re getting married in November, but I need help thinking about what else is needed. We have the venue, caterer, and photographer. His dad will be our officiant. What other things do we need to think about? Here are some of my questions on some main items I’ve already though about:
Rentals - Our venue doesn’t have chairs or tables. So, we’re going to have to rent. Should I have booked that a long time ago? Do I still have time?
Lighting - Can you rent lighting? We’re having a reception outdoors and tbh I can’t remember the lighting situation. I know I can just ask, but just in case - can you rent lighting things?
Decor - I’m gonna hunker down this summer and try to DYI as much as I can with whatever I can find and get.
HMUA - When should I do a trial? It’ll just be my mom and I that are getting makeup done. Would it be best to have someone come to us or go to them? Ideally I’d like them to come to us, but I’d assume that be extra?
Nails - How far out do y’all get a mani/pedi done? My nails are naturally long so I don’t do acrylics (also I’m just scared, haha). So, I was thinking gel polish? But the thing is I’m and art teacher, I’m so clumsy, and I talk with my hands, so regular polish chips fairly easily on me. Does gel hold up? I don’t really get my nails done that often (like I said, art teacher, so little spending money) so I have no idea when I should get nails done. Oh! I’m also a Hot Cheetos girly and they are my comfort snack in times of stress. I’m scared I’m gonna have Hot Cheetos fingers 🥴
Invites - We didn’t do save the dates since the people invited are people were already close to and we’ve told them the date once we set it. How far out do you send the invites?
Registry - How do you do it? Do you just go up to the service desk and ask? We were thinking Target and maybe Amazon? We wish Lowe’s had a registry because we have a fixer upper house and could use some assistance 😂
Speakers - We don’t plan on having a DJ to save on costs. What would be the best speakers to work with? Can you rent those also? How many speakers?
Rings - We don’t have wedding bands. I have my engagement ring but I haven’t gotten him a band. Am I pushing it? Do I, myself, need a wedding band or can we just use the engagement ring?
I don’t know what else I might be missing? Any guidance would be appreciated!

Hello everyone,
Looking for a new home for my Rescue Beauty Lounge collection. (RBL was an upscale salon in NYC with their own line of beautiful, understated polish with a great formula, they closed in 2015.)
Please note that these have been stored in a Helmer, and come in their original boxes. Each bottle was swatched and some were used once for manicure.

1. “Georgia On My Mind” or GOMM collection. This was released in 2012 and you can see swatches by the great Scrangie here. Seven polishes, these were swatched and a couple were used for full manis.

Photos
Price for the collection is $50 plus shipping.
Abiquiu
Bella Donna
Faraway Nearby
Ghost Ranch
Jack in the Box
Oriental Poppy
Santa Fe Road
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2. Single bottles from various RBL releases.
All 8 plus RBL Base Coat for $50 plus shipping.
Photos
Anne (no box)
Bikini Bottom
Catherine
Chinoise
Cuprum
Halcyon (bottom label missing)
Purple Haze (no box)
Under the Stars
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Offers and questions are welcome. I will request thru Paypal and ship with USPS Ground.
Thank you for looking and have a great day!

My son showed me that he broke a nail and I said I’d fix it. Typically I just trim and file his nails but he had a bad day at school and I wanted to give him some extra attention.
It was just a manicure and clear polish. It wasn’t even glossy, it was matte, because I know my son wouldn’t like shiny nails. It calmed him down and we had a nice time together.
My husband got home from work as we were finishing. He loudly asked what I was doing and told our son to show him his hand. My heart jumped being spoken to like that out no where.
I said I just fixed his nails and my husband said “that’s fine, just remember he’s not a mini you, he’s a boy. My son”. I didn’t say anything back because I don’t like to argue.
My son mumbled to me “why is he so mean?”. I told him that he was tired from work. As I was putting some lotion on his hand he asked “is he mad at us?”. I told him everything was okay and not to feel bad.
My husband must have picked up on our son’s nerves because later he said to our son “you know I’m not being mean to you or your mother, right? I’m fine with her pampering you, I’m just reminding her to do it appropriately”. He didn’t even really say I was doing anything wrong but it still made me feel like I was. I do honestly think he was tired. I hate seeing our son have anxiety about his dad, it’s usually not like that.

Worked at a gas station owned by a grocery store for a very long time. We had little pouches attached to the clips for our name tags. I found out one day that said pouch was just barely big enough to put one of our orange clearance tags in. It had an arrow that was supposed to point up towards the item name, but instead, it pointed up to my name.
Any time a customer would ask how much I was on clearance for I would jokingly tell them $1 million. It was a nice ice breaker and most people would also joke back. I had one regular who started calling me Clarence, and another who actually presented me with a fake 1 million dollar bill. Any time I worked with one particular co-worker and someone asked, he would shake his head and say it was too much money (rude).
Of course there's always one person that ruins everything. He happened to come into the gas station on valentines day of all days. He pulled up to the pump closest to the pay window so I got a good look into the garbage dump he mistakenly called a vehicle. There were bags and bags of trash, old yellowed pillows, empty and half empty bottles of soda crammed up to the ceiling and in every free space of the backseat, to the point where it was spilling into the front seat. I'd never seen him before but this wasn't my first time handling a mobile hoarder.
He putzed around the store a bit, made his selection and came up to my pay counter. I made the usual small talk with him ('Hi, how are ya?' 'How was your day?') but he wasn't particularly chatty so I didn't press further. I had just finished scanning his items and was about to ask if he wanted a bag when he spoke first.
"How much?" He asked. After confirming with my register I told him the price of his items. I can't remember how much it was exactly but it couldn't have been any more than $15.
He goes, "No. How much." Then points to my name tag/the clearance tag. Realizing what he meant I laughed and told him $1 million, like I did everyone else.
Completely stone faced and without skipping a beat he asks, "Would you take $250,000 cash?"
"No, sorry. $1 million is already the discounted price." I tried to awkwardly laugh it off, wanting nothing more than for this man to leave.
He continued to give me his dead eyed stare before responding. "Damn. Wish I had it then you'd be coming home with me tonight."
Bruh, what? Do you mean out to the parking lot where your rolling cesspool awaits?
"Yeeah." I kind of nodded. We finished the rest of the transaction and he sat in his car staring at me through the plate glass window for about 10 minutes before finally oozing away. I took the clearance sticker out of my nametag pouch and never looked back.

This post is about something from Hinduism you may not have heard of, which is why I think it is relevant to this sub.
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I have been developing a somewhat noxious habit recently. You see, years ago, after my last acid trip led me to a psychosis that landed me in the psych ward, along with federal charges pressed against me (psychosis and airplanes really don’t mix!), I haven’t really had opportunity to experience the psychedelic state again, as it would be obviously too dangerous. But I had noticed that my brain is so… different now, that a mild dose of alcohol, enough to give me a buzz, also landed me in a properly psychedelic state.
So once a week I’ve been going to the corner pub, to get that buzz. Sometimes I mix it up by getting a bottle of wine instead.
One evening, I had drank a tall glass of wine, but it really hadn’t given me that buzz. It’s worrisome how much I wanted the buzz. It feels like I understand how someone can become an alcoholic now. Nevertheless, I went ahead and poured myself another tall glass of wine, meaning I would drink about 4/5 of the bottle on that single night.
I looked at that glass on the counter. Then I suddenly got the urge to tip its entire contents into the sink.
I paused. Where did that come from? I ruminated. I told myself how much I would enjoy drinking this, being all cozy and buzzed in my bed. Suddenly, the part of me saying that started sounding like Gríma Wormtongue whispering in my ear. And I realized that the urge to dump the wine more specifically felt like a pull, a pull upwards inside of me, a pull towards something that shines. And the urge to drink it also felt like a pull, a pull downwards, into darkness.
I let myself be pulled upwards. I grabbed the glass and emptied it entirely. And I was rewarded! Doing this instantly gave me a buzz that lasted a good long while, one not tainted by the dullness of alcohol.
And I realized this was not the first time I had felt the upwards pull. It’s what made me start going to the gym. What made me read Plato, and the Bhagavad Gita, and René Guénon.
Nor the first time I had felt the downwards pull. It’s what made me overeat. To meander on the internet. To isolate myself instead of striving to connect with other people.
Calling these things ‘upwards pull’ and ‘downwards pull’ is gonna get old fast. Since the first one I noticed is the upwards pull, let’s just call it ‘the pull’. The other one is also a pull, but it could also be fairly called ‘the slack’, as it opposes the pull, and slack really is its final destination.
But it’s not so simple as the pull being all good. Or the slack being all bad.
Some time after that I was lying in bed, reminiscing about a video game. I do so love video games. Then the pull yanked me again, the urge this time being to go into my living room in that instant and destroy my PS4. I suppose I didn’t feel the slack that time, unless it is that I didn’t notice it because I instinctively went with it. Maybe Wormtongue seduced me.
Another time, I had really got it into my head that I must go and watch John Wick 4. Even went out on a very rainy night to do so. At one point in the movie, a woman gets killed. That didn’t sit right with me, and I started looking at the movie in a much more dim light. What am I even doing? Is watching this shit really different from going to the Colosseum? And I felt the pull, this time telling me that I should stand up and leave, right now. This time, I also felt the slack: just sink into your seat, it was hard enough getting here, you want to get your money’s worth right? I went with the slack, which led to a very interesting experience with the movie. It was like I saw mankind rising against Ṛta in some kind of planet-wide rock concert mixed with a Brazilian carnival. Presumably, I would have seen something different had I left, something completely the opposite.
The pull is good in a way: it really was the right call to ditch that wine. But it’s also an all-consuming conflagration. It wants you to sacrifice all that isn’t it. It was the pull that made Abraham attempt to sacrifice Isaac, and it was the slack that made him change his mind. It was the pull that made the Aztecs sacrifice around 250,000 people per year.
The pull is yang and the slack is yin. When Jesus said:

And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

maybe he was saying to kill yin? Well, yin, the dark side, doesn’t actually stand for evil. And there is this book called Christ, the Eternal Tao, which I haven’t read, but its mere existence is quite the statement.
And yet, what were the yin aspects of Jesus? He seems pure yang, the light side, which means he was imbalanced, which is ironically as close to a definition of evil as Taoism gets.
But, potentially, Jesus knew this. He did ask, 'Why do you call me good?’, which leads one to wonder what could be wrong about him that he had to reject the label ‘good’. Maybe he dimly sensed it was wrong to say things like ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’, which is very un-taoist, what with its ideal of leading by not-leading (I have no idea what Christ, the Eternal Tao is on about).
That one really was a hell of a saying of Jesus. Can you imagine a guy looking you in the eye and saying that one to you? It’s honestly a legitimate miracle that he did that and at least some bought it. I wonder if I would’ve bought it. Would you have done so?
The pull and the slack map more cleanly into the Hindu guṇas, which are the 3 essential qualities of everything in existence. These are:

1. Sattva, the ascending tendency, representing balance and harmony and all things good. It’s associated with the color white.
2. Rajas, the horizontal tendency, representing passion, which is neither good nor bad. Associated with red.
3. Tamas, the descending tendency, representing imbalance and chaos and all things bad. It’s color is black.

The pull is sattva and the slack is tamas, and it’s pretty neat that I independently confirmed the existence of these things, because it was only later that I learned sattva is an ascending tendency and tamas a descending one.
I haven’t really described rajas, because most things are rajas, at least in my life. Honestly, I would even file masturbation under that one, as I don’t really feel a descent there, and as it turns out, masturbation is not a big deal in Hinduism, it being seen as a very minor infraction even for people who have taken a vow of chastity.
An interesting thing about the guṇas, is that all three need to be present for there to be a manifestation, that is, a universe, at all: there couldn’t be such a thing as a purely sattvic, or tamasic, world. It would be like positing a one-note melody.
So yin-yang is an incomplete symbol. But it does highlight that interesting feature of yang having a dot of yin, and yin of yang: there is no such thing as all-yang or all-yin. If your right hand offends thee, what you really need is a dose of Taoism! (and maybe some Haldol).
We come back to the fact that, ultimately, pouring that wine down the sink was the right call. Would thrashing my PS4 had been the right call also? The third (and I know, final) time I was in the psych ward, I met a very devout, smiling Christian there. He even got other patients to kneel and pray with him. From interacting with him, it wasn’t clear why he ended up warded, but someone later told me that he had started thrashing all the electronics in his house, and when I asked him about it, he said there were demons in there. I shared that intuition for an instant then, and it’s pretty interesting that there’s this environmentalist Christian named Paul Kingsnorth whose work is all about how techno-capitalist civilization is this machine, the Machine, that we have enthroned as God and is in the process of devouring God’s creation, and the only way out is to renounce technology as best as you can and RETVRN TO TRADITION, though he doesn’t go quite that far with that last part (at least right now) being a former leftist and having a well-educated wife that I imagine would never go along with it.
Paul Kingsnorth is doing a more high-brow version of the behavior that got that Christian warded, and looking at it from another angle, the vibe worshipers over on That Part Of Twitter (better known as tpot) have said that AI art gives them bad vibes, and basically, are you down with this video?
Grimes - We Appreciate Power
Or do you want Kalki avatar to come, burn everything down, and restore Satya Yuga? Surely one must pick, it’s all so boring if we get stuck in an Eternal 90s.
Sattva and tamas, the pull and the slack. It pays to be aware of these things, because ultimately, even though the unbridled pull just leads to insanity, the fruit of the slack, tamas, can be seen in the homeless drug addicts which I see everyday. I don’t believe in a yin-yang balance between these things: it is better to have an overall sattvic tendency, to the degree one can manage it. I don’t believe it’s a matter of submitting to some rules. Someone once told me that true brahmins don’t indulge not because they are suppressing their desires, but because they are truly revolted by the things we would call indulging. I can’t say I yearn for such a state, but should I land in it, I don’t think I would resist it.
Subscribe

I have been developing a somewhat noxious habit recently. You see, years ago, after my last acid trip led me to a psychosis that landed me in the psych ward, along with federal charges pressed against me (psychosis and airplanes really don’t mix!), I haven’t really had opportunity to experience the psychedelic state again, as it would be obviously too dangerous. But I had noticed that my brain is so… different now, that a mild dose of alcohol, enough to give me a buzz, also landed me in a properly psychedelic state.
So once a week I’ve been going to the corner pub, to get that buzz. Sometimes I mix it up by getting a bottle of wine instead.
One evening, I had drank a tall glass of wine, but it really hadn’t given me that buzz. It’s worrisome how much I wanted the buzz. It feels like I understand how someone can become an alcoholic now. Nevertheless, I went ahead and poured myself another tall glass of wine, meaning I would drink about 4/5 of the bottle on that single night.
I looked at that glass on the counter. Then I suddenly got the urge to tip its entire contents into the sink.
I paused. Where did that come from? I ruminated. I told myself how much I would enjoy drinking this, being all cozy and buzzed in my bed. Suddenly, the part of me saying that started sounding like Gríma Wormtongue whispering in my ear. And I realized that the urge to dump the wine more specifically felt like a pull, a pull upwards inside of me, a pull towards something that shines. And the urge to drink it also felt like a pull, a pull downwards, into darkness.
I let myself be pulled upwards. I grabbed the glass and emptied it entirely. And I was rewarded! Doing this instantly gave me a buzz that lasted a good long while, one not tainted by the dullness of alcohol.
And I realized this was not the first time I had felt the upwards pull. It’s what made me start going to the gym. What made me read Plato, and the Bhagavad Gita, and René Guénon.
Nor the first time I had felt the downwards pull. It’s what made me overeat. To meander on the internet. To isolate myself instead of striving to connect with other people.
Calling these things ‘upwards pull’ and ‘downwards pull’ is gonna get old fast. Since the first one I noticed is the upwards pull, let’s just call it ‘the pull’. The other one is also a pull, but it could also be fairly called ‘the slack’, as it opposes the pull, and slack really is its final destination.
But it’s not so simple as the pull being all good. Or the slack being all bad.
Some time after that I was lying in bed, reminiscing about a video game. I do so love video games. Then the pull yanked me again, the urge this time being to go into my living room in that instant and destroy my PS4. I suppose I didn’t feel the slack that time, unless it is that I didn’t notice it because I instinctively went with it. Maybe Wormtongue seduced me.
Another time, I had really got it into my head that I must go and watch John Wick 4. Even went out on a very rainy night to do so. At one point in the movie, a woman gets killed. That didn’t sit right with me, and I started looking at the movie in a much more dim light. What am I even doing? Is watching this shit really different from going to the Colosseum? And I felt the pull, this time telling me that I should stand up and leave, right now. This time, I also felt the slack: just sink into your seat, it was hard enough getting here, you want to get your money’s worth right? I went with the slack, which led to a very interesting experience with the movie. It was like I saw mankind rising against Ṛta in some kind of planet-wide rock concert mixed with a Brazilian carnival. Presumably, I would have seen something different had I left, something completely the opposite.
The pull is good in a way: it really was the right call to ditch that wine. But it’s also an all-consuming conflagration. It wants you to sacrifice all that isn’t it. It was the pull that made Abraham attempt to sacrifice Isaac, and it was the slack that made him change his mind. It was the pull that made the Aztecs sacrifice around 250,000 people per year.
The pull is yang and the slack is yin. When Jesus said:

And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

maybe he was saying to kill yin? Well, yin, the dark side, doesn’t actually stand for evil. And there is this book called Christ, the Eternal Tao, which I haven’t read, but its mere existence is quite the statement.
And yet, what were the yin aspects of Jesus? He seems pure yang, the light side, which means he was imbalanced, which is ironically as close to a definition of evil as Taoism gets.
But, potentially, Jesus knew this. He did ask, 'Why do you call me good?’, which leads one to wonder what could be wrong about him that he had to reject the label ‘good’. Maybe he dimly sensed it was wrong to say things like ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’, which is very un-taoist, what with its ideal of leading by not-leading (I have no idea what Christ, the Eternal Tao is on about).
That one really was a hell of a saying of Jesus. Can you imagine a guy looking you in the eye and saying that one to you? It’s honestly a legitimate miracle that he did that and at least some bought it. I wonder if I would’ve bought it. Would you have done so?
The pull and the slack map more cleanly into the Hindu guṇas, which are the 3 essential qualities of everything in existence. These are:

1. Sattva, the ascending tendency, representing balance and harmony and all things good. It’s associated with the color white.
2. Rajas, the horizontal tendency, representing passion, which is neither good nor bad. Associated with red.
3. Tamas, the descending tendency, representing imbalance and chaos and all things bad. It’s color is black.

The pull is sattva and the slack is tamas, and it’s pretty neat that I independently confirmed the existence of these things, because it was only later that I learned sattva is an ascending tendency and tamas a descending one.
I haven’t really described rajas, because most things are rajas, at least in my life. Honestly, I would even file masturbation under that one, as I don’t really feel a descent there, and as it turns out, masturbation is not a big deal in Hinduism, it being seen as a very minor infraction even for people who have taken a vow of chastity.
An interesting thing about the guṇas, is that all three need to be present for there to be a manifestation, that is, a universe, at all: there couldn’t be such a thing as a purely sattvic, or tamasic, world. It would be like positing a one-note melody.
So yin-yang is an incomplete symbol. But it does highlight that interesting feature of yang having a dot of yin, and yin of yang: there is no such thing as all-yang or all-yin. If your right hand offends thee, what you really need is a dose of Taoism! (and maybe some Haldol).
We come back to the fact that, ultimately, pouring that wine down the sink was the right call. Would thrashing my PS4 had been the right call also? The third (and I know, final) time I was in the psych ward, I met a very devout, smiling Christian there. He even got other patients to kneel and pray with him. From interacting with him, it wasn’t clear why he ended up warded, but someone later told me that he had started thrashing all the electronics in his house, and when I asked him about it, he said there were demons in there. I shared that intuition for an instant then, and it’s pretty interesting that there’s this environmentalist Christian named Paul Kingsnorth whose work is all about how techno-capitalist civilization is this machine, the Machine, that we have enthroned as God and is in the process of devouring God’s creation, and the only way out is to renounce technology as best as you can and RETVRN TO TRADITION, though he doesn’t go quite that far with that last part (at least right now) being a former leftist and having a well-educated wife that I imagine would never go along with it.
Paul Kingsnorth is doing a more high-brow version of the behavior that got that Christian warded, and looking at it from another angle, the vibe worshipers over on That Part Of Twitter (better known as tpot) have said that AI art gives them bad vibes, and basically, are you down with this video?
Grimes - We Appreciate Power
Or do you want Kalki avatar to come, burn everything down, and restore Satya Yuga? Surely one must pick, it’s all so boring if we get stuck in an Eternal 90s.
Sattva and tamas, the pull and the slack. It pays to be aware of these things, because ultimately, even though the unbridled pull just leads to insanity, the fruit of the slack, tamas, can be seen in the homeless drug addicts which I see everyday. I don’t believe in a yin-yang balance between these things: it is better to have an overall sattvic tendency, to the degree one can manage it. I don’t believe it’s a matter of submitting to some rules. Someone once told me that true brahmins don’t indulge not because they are suppressing their desires, but because they are truly revolted by the things we would call indulging. I can’t say I yearn for such a state, but should I land in it, I don’t think I would resist it.
Subscribe

I have been developing a somewhat noxious habit recently. You see, years ago, after my last acid trip led me to a psychosis that landed me in the psych ward, along with federal charges pressed against me (psychosis and airplanes really don’t mix!), I haven’t really had opportunity to experience the psychedelic state again, as it would be obviously too dangerous. But I had noticed that my brain is so… different now, that a mild dose of alcohol, enough to give me a buzz, also landed me in a properly psychedelic state.
So once a week I’ve been going to the corner pub, to get that buzz. Sometimes I mix it up by getting a bottle of wine instead.
One evening, I had drank a tall glass of wine, but it really hadn’t given me that buzz. It’s worrisome how much I wanted the buzz. It feels like I understand how someone can become an alcoholic now. Nevertheless, I went ahead and poured myself another tall glass of wine, meaning I would drink about 4/5 of the bottle on that single night.
I looked at that glass on the counter. Then I suddenly got the urge to tip its entire contents into the sink.
I paused. Where did that come from? I ruminated. I told myself how much I would enjoy drinking this, being all cozy and buzzed in my bed. Suddenly, the part of me saying that started sounding like Gríma Wormtongue whispering in my ear. And I realized that the urge to dump the wine more specifically felt like a pull, a pull upwards inside of me, a pull towards something that shines. And the urge to drink it also felt like a pull, a pull downwards, into darkness.
I let myself be pulled upwards. I grabbed the glass and emptied it entirely. And I was rewarded! Doing this instantly gave me a buzz that lasted a good long while, one not tainted by the dullness of alcohol.
And I realized this was not the first time I had felt the upwards pull. It’s what made me start going to the gym. What made me read Plato, and the Bhagavad Gita, and René Guénon.
Nor the first time I had felt the downwards pull. It’s what made me overeat. To meander on the internet. To isolate myself instead of striving to connect with other people.
Calling these things ‘upwards pull’ and ‘downwards pull’ is gonna get old fast. Since the first one I noticed is the upwards pull, let’s just call it ‘the pull’. The other one is also a pull, but it could also be fairly called ‘the slack’, as it opposes the pull, and slack really is its final destination.
But it’s not so simple as the pull being all good. Or the slack being all bad.
Some time after that I was lying in bed, reminiscing about a video game. I do so love video games. Then the pull yanked me again, the urge this time being to go into my living room in that instant and destroy my PS4. I suppose I didn’t feel the slack that time, unless it is that I didn’t notice it because I instinctively went with it. Maybe Wormtongue seduced me.
Another time, I had really got it into my head that I must go and watch John Wick 4. Even went out on a very rainy night to do so. At one point in the movie, a woman gets killed. That didn’t sit right with me, and I started looking at the movie in a much more dim light. What am I even doing? Is watching this shit really different from going to the Colosseum? And I felt the pull, this time telling me that I should stand up and leave, right now. This time, I also felt the slack: just sink into your seat, it was hard enough getting here, you want to get your money’s worth right? I went with the slack, which led to a very interesting experience with the movie. It was like I saw mankind rising against Ṛta in some kind of planet-wide rock concert mixed with a Brazilian carnival. Presumably, I would have seen something different had I left, something completely the opposite.
The pull is good in a way: it really was the right call to ditch that wine. But it’s also an all-consuming conflagration. It wants you to sacrifice all that isn’t it. It was the pull that made Abraham attempt to sacrifice Isaac, and it was the slack that made him change his mind. It was the pull that made the Aztecs sacrifice around 250,000 people per year.
The pull is yang and the slack is yin. When Jesus said:

And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

maybe he was saying to kill yin? Well, yin, the dark side, doesn’t actually stand for evil. And there is this book called Christ, the Eternal Tao, which I haven’t read, but its mere existence is quite the statement.
And yet, what were the yin aspects of Jesus? He seems pure yang, the light side, which means he was imbalanced, which is ironically as close to a definition of evil as Taoism gets.
But, potentially, Jesus knew this. He did ask, 'Why do you call me good?’, which leads one to wonder what could be wrong about him that he had to reject the label ‘good’. Maybe he dimly sensed it was wrong to say things like ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’, which is very un-taoist, what with its ideal of leading by not-leading (I have no idea what Christ, the Eternal Tao is on about).
That one really was a hell of a saying of Jesus. Can you imagine a guy looking you in the eye and saying that one to you? It’s honestly a legitimate miracle that he did that and at least some bought it. I wonder if I would’ve bought it. Would you have done so?
The pull and the slack map more cleanly into the Hindu guṇas, which are the 3 essential qualities of everything in existence. These are:

1. Sattva, the ascending tendency, representing balance and harmony and all things good. It’s associated with the color white.
2. Rajas, the horizontal tendency, representing passion, which is neither good nor bad. Associated with red.
3. Tamas, the descending tendency, representing imbalance and chaos and all things bad. It’s color is black.

The pull is sattva and the slack is tamas, and it’s pretty neat that I independently confirmed the existence of these things, because it was only later that I learned sattva is an ascending tendency and tamas a descending one.
I haven’t really described rajas, because most things are rajas, at least in my life. Honestly, I would even file masturbation under that one, as I don’t really feel a descent there, and as it turns out, masturbation is not a big deal in Hinduism, it being seen as a very minor infraction even for people who have taken a vow of chastity.
An interesting thing about the guṇas, is that all three need to be present for there to be a manifestation, that is, a universe, at all: there couldn’t be such a thing as a purely sattvic, or tamasic, world. It would be like positing a one-note melody.
So yin-yang is an incomplete symbol. But it does highlight that interesting feature of yang having a dot of yin, and yin of yang: there is no such thing as all-yang or all-yin. If your right hand offends thee, what you really need is a dose of Taoism! (and maybe some Haldol).
We come back to the fact that, ultimately, pouring that wine down the sink was the right call. Would thrashing my PS4 had been the right call also? The third (and I know, final) time I was in the psych ward, I met a very devout, smiling Christian there. He even got other patients to kneel and pray with him. From interacting with him, it wasn’t clear why he ended up warded, but someone later told me that he had started thrashing all the electronics in his house, and when I asked him about it, he said there were demons in there. I shared that intuition for an instant then, and it’s pretty interesting that there’s this environmentalist Christian named Paul Kingsnorth whose work is all about how techno-capitalist civilization is this machine, the Machine, that we have enthroned as God and is in the process of devouring God’s creation, and the only way out is to renounce technology as best as you can and RETVRN TO TRADITION, though he doesn’t go quite that far with that last part (at least right now) being a former leftist and having a well-educated wife that I imagine would never go along with it.
Paul Kingsnorth is doing a more high-brow version of the behavior that got that Christian warded, and looking at it from another angle, the vibe worshipers over on That Part Of Twitter (better known as tpot) have said that AI art gives them bad vibes, and basically, are you down with this video?
Grimes - We Appreciate Power
Or do you want Kalki avatar to come, burn everything down, and restore Satya Yuga? Surely one must pick, it’s all so boring if we get stuck in an Eternal 90s.
Sattva and tamas, the pull and the slack. It pays to be aware of these things, because ultimately, even though the unbridled pull just leads to insanity, the fruit of the slack, tamas, can be seen in the homeless drug addicts which I see everyday. I don’t believe in a yin-yang balance between these things: it is better to have an overall sattvic tendency, to the degree one can manage it. I don’t believe it’s a matter of submitting to some rules. Someone once told me that true brahmins don’t indulge not because they are suppressing their desires, but because they are truly revolted by the things we would call indulging. I can’t say I yearn for such a state, but should I land in it, I don’t think I would resist it.
Subscribe

Chapter 1 - The Facility
Northern Facility, Vanstead Dukedom of Augustein, Year 984
Ben was crying again. Amara shifted under her thin blanket, wincing as the movement caused some of her wounds to press into the cold stone floor. At least the bandages stayed secure; the magicians always made sure every cut was well dressed after their “sessions.” It was “to prevent contamination,” they said.
Rolling onto her stomach, Amara peered through the thick darkness of their cell. On the other side of Susie and Ellie’s curled forms, she could just barely make out a trembling silhouette facing the wall. Amara frowned as another soft sniffle reached her ears. Ben had gotten a lot quieter at crying since he’d arrived, but the boy could never quite hide it completely.
Amara glanced around at the other still figures in the cell, so closely packed together that they covered nearly the entire floor in motionless lumps. People learned quickly to sleep still. There wasn’t the space to thrash around, and most kids got so tired after sessions that it was easy to fall unconscious.
From what she could tell, it didn’t seem like anyone else had woken up. Amara squinted over at Ben again, briefly considering getting up to console the boy, but she hesitated. She wouldn’t really have anything to say to him, and besides, she’d wake up the others if she tried, she told herself.
Amara laid her head back down on the ground. When she’d first been taken to the facility, she hadn’t been able to sleep on the hard surface, but now she found the ever present chill a comfort. She closed her eyes and ignored the sniffles.
It would be fine, she told herself. Ben was relatively new. In a couple more weeks, he’d stop crying like the rest of them.
—
They introduced themselves with big names that Amara had been too tired and too scared to remember. One moment she’d been sleeping on a soft bed, and the next she’d woken to a blur of shifting figures and yells. In that frantic jumble of alien surroundings and sensations, it had been difficult to parse information. But she remembered them saying that they were “licensed as court magicians” and that they’d brought her there “for a great purpose” on the orders of the Sovereign, so Amara had always called them “the magicians” in her head. She’d heard some of the other kids call them “doctors,” but she knew that word was for people who healed, so she didn’t use it.
Amara thought her parents might have been doctors, once. It was hard to remember. The longer she spent in the grey walls of the facility, where only faint torchlight touched and the brightest color was Susie’s ginger hair, the more the days blurred into an endless stream of sleep, sessions, food, and more sessions. These days, the most she remembered were the few flashes that appeared in her dreams. Little huts lining a dusty street, swaying yellowed grasses, and fuzzy figures passing in and out of her vision.
More and more Amara was beginning to wonder if maybe she’d always been in the facility and there was nothing else outside of it. The only thing that kept her somewhat grounded, that assured her that she wasn’t imagining another past, was the presence of James, the one person in the cell who’d been there for a longer time than her.
He was a quiet boy. Most of the time he would simply sit in the corner of the cell and stare at the wall, never speaking or acknowledging anyone. Susie had gone up to him once, and the boy hadn’t even twitched when she started talking. Amara didn’t blame him. If anything, she felt a sort of camaraderie with the boy.
Out of everyone in the cell, the two of them were probably the oldest. It was hard to know when neither of them remembered their ages, but they were taller than the other kids, so that was the assumption. And being the oldest and the ones who’d been there the longest came with a certain mutual understanding that existed even in the vast spaces of silence.
—
One benefit of being there so long was that the better Amara’s pain tolerance grew, the more she could understand during “sessions.”
“Maximum output has reached 17, surpassing the previous record.”
“What about the variability? Has that changed again?”
At first, she’d always squeezed her eyes shut, but now Amara kept them open, both to prepare for what was happening next and to stare at the magicians’ faces. Their eyes were always focused and sharp. There was a detached, unwavering quality to them that she thought she might’ve found inspiring in a different context. Now, all it did was stir up a cold, simmering feeling deep in her gut that was constantly on the edge of boiling, a feeling she pushed down and kept bottled as tightly as she could.
“It’s lowered again, sir.”
“Fascinating. Perhaps the artificially increased output has destroyed the magic’s control and self regulation. Run a few more tests. I want to get to the bottom of this before this session is over.”
Only one magician she’d seen hadn’t had eyes like that. There was still the sharpness, but every now and then the woman’s gaze would dart away briefly, or she’d wince a little at particularly deep cuts.
“I’m sorry,” she’d whispered once, hunched over so that no one else could hear her. Amara remembered the way her shoulders had trembled, how she’d forced her expression back into a hardened mask when the other magicians appeared again.
Amara had quickly grown to resent her.
A part of her was aware that it was irrational of her to hate this magician so much, even more than the ones with icy eyes and uncaring hands, but every time Amara saw the woman, she couldn’t help but hate her for knowing that things were wrong and still refusing to do anything about it.
It didn’t matter much in the end. Amara never did say anything, would only stare at her unblinkingly, and the woman herself vanished within a few weeks. All that was left were those distant magicians who seemed to Amara more like moving statues than people, the ones who muttered words and numbers with sometimes fascination, sometimes disappointment, and sometimes an emotion she later realized was ambition.
“Of course, sir.”
—
Amara stared at the glowing lines of fiery orange and red climbing up her right arm, watching as the lights began to fade. The markings always appeared after sessions, though it was rare for her to get such an unobstructed view of them. Usually layers of bandages would obscure the patterns. They lit up the cell, and the light made it easy to ignore the scars nestled between them.
The marks drew crooked lines that broke into smaller branches, all of them snaking up her forearm like lightning. Then, on the back of her right hand, that red and orange glow would trace out numbers and words. The magicians always took care to record them. Sometimes they’d check what they were even outside of official sessions.
Amara didn’t know much about magic. She suspected that she was supposed to know more, that surely someone must have taught her about it, but those memories were just as hazy as everything else about her past.
Shuffling on the floor, Amara watched as the glow of the markings finally faded, eyes fixed on the numbers and letters just before they faded into her skin. They had changed in the facility, she knew that much. She would stare at them and know in her core that they were wrong, that they weren’t what hers should say.
Amara dropped her hand back down and looked away, not wanting to stare at those numbers any more.
​
AMARA
Magic Reserves: 87,409 / 110,876
Maximum Output: 17
Variability: 3
​
AFFINITIES
Energy: 100% Major
Motion: 50% Minor
Form: 25% Basic
Perception: 25% Basic
Emotions: 0% None
Mind: 100% Major
Time: 0% None
Probability: 0% None
—
Amara couldn’t remember how many times she’d seen someone in the cell disappear only to be replaced with a new trembling child. She’d gotten good at predicting when it would happen. Behavioral changes were usually the biggest indicator. When one of the louder kids suddenly went quiet or vice versa, usually they’d be gone by morning.
That was why, when one day James started shaking uncontrollably when he got back from his session, Amara knew. Despite usually keeping to himself, that day, he couldn’t stop thrashing around, kept saying it felt like something was crawling in his veins in a hoarse voice that Amara had never heard say so many words at once before. His thin, malnourished arms and legs jerked around in sharp, disjointed movements, and his breathing came in heavy pants. Amara and the others had to huddle on the other side of the cell just to avoid getting hit.
Just before the guards came in to take James away, Amara just barely managed to catch a glimpse of the glowing markings crawling up James’s arms in zigzagging patterns as his magic activated in uncontrolled bursts. The lights flickered between pale green and a dark, inky black. The black lingered for longer and longer up until James was dragged away, completely overtaking those faint lights. He never came back. The cold feeling rose, bubbling even more intensely, barely able to be restrained.
Amara wondered, lying awake the next night, if she missed the boy. It was hard to tell. She’d barely talked to him, after all, and she’d seen this happen far too often for it to be a surprise. Maybe she just missed having someone else around who’d been there for so long. Maybe she missed the familiarity of the same figure always huddled in the same spot, a constant in her peripheral vision. Or maybe she was just scared that she’d be next.
Still, even as the children in the cell cycled, Amara remained, now the oldest and longest lasting person in the cell.
—
It took them a long time to find a replacement for James. Usually the new child would show up within a few days, but this time, James’s little corner of the cell stayed empty. Some of the kids shuffled over and took over his old space, and no one blamed them for it.
The longer they went without a new arrival, the more uneasy Amara got. The air in the cell felt colder without another body squished inside. She would wake up at night and think that the hunched silhouettes of the sleeping children didn’t look quite right.
Then Ellie disappeared, and once again no new arrivals came. Susie took up James’s old corner, where she would sit motionless facing the wall in a warped mimicry of the boy. The kids who had started sleeping there simply moved to where she and Ellie had usually slept. Life went on.
Amara started staying up later, eyes fixed on the cell door. Ben had stopped crying by then, so it was harder to stay awake sometimes when she felt particularly exhausted, but she forced herself to do it. She felt her unease swirl and grow, rising higher and higher in sloshing waves.
And then, just before the dam could break, the cell doors swung open with a metallic creak as Amara lay awake, and a new girl stepped inside.
​
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