4'33'', by John Cage, is commonly remembered as 4 and a half minutes of silence. But contrary to popular belief, the song is not actually meant to be the sound of silence, but the sound of quiet. Ambient noises contribute to - and consist of - the performance. True silence does not exist. If one tilts their head right, the whole world sings.
and, with that said, a playlist.
yeah, this one's a doozy. hi, cubewatermelon and co. miss me?
rhetorical question. don't answer that.
A few nitty-gritty things out of the way, first. this is specifically intended for the 2018 mod team for the sleepless domain fans discord server, primarily cubewatermelon/mary cagle. Folks who knew me are welcome to look on, but I'm not going to do much to catch people up to speed. hi, everyone! hope you're well!
I also might be a bit disjointed or biased in my recollection. For reasons that will be made clear extremely soon, I can't put my childhood on a linear timeline. I can only express myself, and hope I don't mess it up horribly this time.
Noooowww to the big stuff. re: stalking; i genuinely didn't mean to stalk anyone, and when they told me to back off, i backed off. I am not willing to discuss this further. not being able to conceptualize other people's emotions or the consequences of my actions has caused some problems for me
that's an autism thing btw. im autistic i dont think i told anyone that
And now, the special guest you've all been waiting for: a big round of applause for the elephant in the room! In accordance with the WMA Declaration of Tokyo, the deliberate overprescription of psychotropic medication is a form of pharmacological torture. Most victims of pharmacological torture and experimentation are children, because it is nigh-impossible to sue for brain damage when there is no fully-formed adult brain for comparison prior to the abuse.
Torture is a strong word, but I don't have another word to use. psychiatric abuse usually describes mistreatment in psychiatric wards; pharmacological abuse describes a patient who takes advantage of a prescription; medical abuse is when a doctor (usually physically) abuses their patient. Being able to understand what happened to you is a form of agency, and I don't even have the words. I identify as a torture victim; this may change.
This high dose was precedented and legal, but the vaginal stretching of intersex infants is also legal. much involuntary psychiatric & psychotropic treatment (such as restraints and solitary confinement) are legal, and child marriage is legal. abuse is not abnormal: it is profoundly normal. Because something is normal, legal, and precedented does not prevent it from being torture.
and when your mother hands you a poison apple and says "here, eat this; it will be good for you; i hope someday you'll forgive me" you have to eat it, because you are eight years old and you don't get to argue with your mother. despite all this, I don't blame my aunt for refilling the high dose. when I said the dose was hurting me, she listened. (thank you, auntie. i wouldn't have gotten out without you.)
And this brings us to you. oh, you four. (five? i forget myself!)
I'd like to establish some context. I was used to things getting taken from me. friend groups in particular: I didn't expect to keep any friends, because I constantly expected to have to pack up and move on. I moved a lot in my childhood, and in Africa, i was constantly told that at some undetermined point in the near future, i'd have to go back to the states. living with my aunt was a temporary thing, i was expected to eventually move back in with my parents at some undetermined point in the future. I relied heavily on online friends because they were people I could have anywhere, so online communities were my only lifeline - not to mention, i was basically in solitary confinement while in Kenya.
Most of all, I was terrified of my mental health/actions being exposed, examined, found lacking, and ultimately excluded. (this is why i was so afraid of psychiatric wards.) When you decided something had to be done about me - cutting me off from the server so i had to speak with you - It was either comply with your demands to communicate (which I could not, and did not understand why) or lose the community. I was so, so afraid of you i wanted to die when you all confronted me, and of course i couldn't say that, because only manipulative people would say "your attempt to solve this problem makes me want to seriously hurt myself."
But then I got called manipulative anyway <3 yay <3
Seriously: I wasn't trying to manipulate anyone, and i have no idea how you can manipulate someone without intention. (ah, that felt good to say!) Between medication spellbinding, alexithymia, and prior abuse, all my thoughts were so disordered i genuinely couldn't explain myself most of the time. Looking back, I have no childhood memory where I was fully lucid. I leaned into a manic persona because it was the only way I had any agency at all. I was something beyond both reason and self-recognition, and I willingly tried to brute-force my way through an extreme trauma response to please you. And you still hit me with my worst nightmare. that's why i was mad at you lol
I was so, so afraid, all the time, and I didn't even have the tools to understand I was afraid. How could someone as confident and impulsive as me be so fearful all the time? Was that manic persona freedom? Or was it a longer leash?
(Forgive my impulse toward rhetoric. I shouldn't ask questions you can't answer.)
I also couldn't say how badly i was hurting, because that would be venting, but you also accused me of venting when I was just talking about my day? or what was on my mind? I didn't understand that very well. autism moment, don't bother explaining it now. I also couldn't burden people with my actual mental health problems, because making strangers deal with that would be toxic! I resent you for setting up a system where it seemed safest not to speak and then punishing me for my inability to communicate. I resent every system that set me up for failure and punished me for failing, including yours.
And yet - I know that was not your intent! I can see in retrospect how hard you tried to be kind using the tools you had. The people with power over me, who genuinely did not want to do me harm and gave me multiple second chances, still upheld and facilitated the systems that tortured me; a miniature parody of the psychiatric system. (talk therapy and communication are useless if you struggle with self-awareness.) The same is true for the source: No person in my psychiatric treatment wanted me to suffer, and yet, here I am: a torture victim without a torturer. (except my parents, sort of.)
The logical conclusion, then: the system only intends to heal those who are already compliant, or prioritize compliance. The rest of us are treated to induce compliance, and if we still cannot, we are sequestered away. My medicine made me sick, and my prescribers made money off of keeping me sick - off of my torture. This is not a conspiracy: it is my lived experience.
However, even if i could communicate perfectly, we still would have had massive communication issues. Like - you know that one page where ben and steffi talk about dating, and ben says he thought steffi was gay? and steffi gets super defensive and it escalates into a screaming fight? I found that offensive, because a character getting that offput by the concept of not liking men (or a man) is kind of lesbophobic! But I understood that it would be a pain to redraw/write the page so they they fight about something else, don't fight, or some other solution, so i didn't need it to be fixed - just wanted to point out that was a reasonable interpretation, and one to be aware of in the future. but somehow my concerns got interpreted as a phrasing issue…? like, Ms. Cagle rewrote the page to say "weren't into guys" instead of "gay"..? You were very polite about it, Ms! But I found this interaction so baffling I didn't even try to correct it. that… wasn't what i said…
frankly we should bring back mildly homophobic steffi. twas narratively appropriate (<- different essay for a different time)
but yeah the whole communication operation was doomed from the start. rip!
The issue was always my inability to communicate, but my meds made it nigh-impossible to understand what I was feeling, and when I did, expressing myself could get me institutionalized. My suffering was inevitable but always, somehow, my fault. Awesome! *disintegrates into a pile of sand*
I cannot deny I was a girl like a box of matches waiting to be struck. You had no choice but to do as you did. But is it really what you ought to have done? (On this, I have no answer. I hope you have one that satisfies you.)
(that was genuine, by the by. i've spent a lot of time pondering this mess, and I still haven't found the "right" answer. I don't think there is one - though action or inaction, there is no version of this story where I don't suffer. I can only hope it was worth it. wait, hold on *adds the omelas child to my Kin List*)
Nor can I deny making my previous open letter in a small attempt to 'get back' at you - i'm not above that. lord knows i'm not innocent. but i really was trying to channel that rage into something productive. unfortunately i was doomed to fail because i didn't know what i meant. if you showed me that letter now, you'd hear a lot of "what? I don't know why I said that" "i have no idea why i would complain about something so minor" etc. You can disregard all that. This is what I was trying to say. the obsession, the trauma, the projection: all of it. So much of my obsession was talking around an issue i couldn't identify.
(meguka image) I know now
I knew I would be traumatized by this whole situation. I saw it coming and i could do nothing to stop it. But Gear was crucial to deciphering all this - in fact, suddenly thinking about her last year prompted me to really dissect my medical situation and realize i was tortured. I couldn't have done it without her. cassie & maggie, against the world.
Gear scans surprisingly well as a victim of long-term torture, actually. I don't think you meant to do that but good job!
speaking of her - i still don't think she's consistently suicidal. she's a real cockroach of a character, and I love her for it! But sometimes, i want to die and i want to live mean the same thing, because they both mean i need to get out of here. Imo, her thought processes and desires frequently contradict themselves, like mine did. and making your favs kill themselves in increasingly gruesome ways is really fun catharsis!
But please don't take this to mean I consider myself - or Gear - blameless. I love her because she's not blameless, because she's cruel for fun, because she'd rather be wicked than helpless. Like knows like. What I mean to say is, as of 2018, there is a black space between little Margret and Gear, and I saw all the signs of something very, very bad happening in that space. I know because I shared that space. what I mean to say is, teenage girls don't go out of their minds over nothing. Everything I made here is just an expression of what I heard in the narrative's silences.
and thus my biggest apprehension around revisiting the comic. knowing the author and I have such fundamentally different experiences with mental health - what if the signs of torture i picked up on weren't intended, or i completely made them up? what if, in the parts i haven't read yet, there's information that uproots my entire interpretation, or berates her for refusing mental health services that hurt me profoundly? how do you reconcile that a character so crucial to deciphering yourself may not be anything like you at all? I Don't Know. Shitpost, probably
You're welcome to share those shitposts and whatnot by the way. Creating this let me put down years of hurt, and i hope it relieves you, too. I don't need to go back on the server, or forgiveness, or anything besides understanding. consider this a peace offering. the terms are yours.
Despite writing nearly 10k words, I still probably missed something or was callous or whatever. Self-expression and self-understanding are… new to me. My apology may be understated, but please take it as I meant it, with utmost sincerity. My askbox is open, and I'm more than happy to discuss antipsych resources, KB, What The Hell Is Wrong With Gear, artistic choices made in this comic, etc. I'm even down to reconnect on discord! Maybe. Uh, I'm conflicted. I reserve my right to not want to talk, be slow in responding, and so on, as should you. we've no obligations and all the time in the world. Let neither of us hurt ourselves in meeting because it's the "right" thing to do. I'm not blaming anyone or trying to start drama. If it would give you the most peace of mind to completely ignore this, please do so.
or, translated: as of right now, I'm not ready for any information about KB after steffi reunites with her dad, or difficult emotional reunions. I would really like to hear from everyone, and I'd appreciate casual well-wishes. I don't want things to be the same, I want them to be peaceful. Baby steps, cassie, baby steps. (very large and fearful prey animal tries not to run into oncoming traffic)
mostly, making this was for me. Perhaps I've said too much, but after spending so long unable to express myself freely, my art was cathartic and necessary. I'm no one's martyr or innocent, I'm just a torture victim trying to make sense of it all. I want to articulate some thoughts I couldn't figure out how to say before and make some silly things that make people laugh. Most of all, I'm happy in ways I never thought I could be, and I would like to share that joy with old acquaintances and other fans of a story I adored.
What I mean to say is: The train's about to leave the station, and there's an empty seat beside me. The train will still leave whether or not you board; but I would be honored not to go it alone!
Thank you to everyone who stuck by me even after the drama. Ethel, Felipe, Chris - even though we've fallen out of contact, your kindness and patience meant more than i can say. special thank you to @stars-in-a-jam-jar, the first person i confessed everything to after the smoke cleared, and someone i consider myself close with no matter how long we fall out of contact. My close online friends, @shafpanda, @theoandmoon, @dvanaestmrva, my honorary cousin @my-name-is-jimmy, and everyone else I confided in about my torture. and, of course, my partners @transloo and @teenyjellyfishy, and my little sibling, @aroacenezhaanddainsleif, the three people I love most in the world. Thank you, all. it is an honor to love you, and be loved by you.
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hi :) I saw thst you reblogged that what's your main spin poll and I wanted to ask if you wanted to elaborate what yours is I love to hear about it!! <3
🥺 aw thank you!! I always enjoy having a chance to infodump a little bit (btw i love ur icon...daphne what an icon)
I do technically have a handful of spins that I consider my main spins because I'm constantly rotating between them (star wars, doctor who, moon knight and spidey) at any given moment, but my strongest spin is definitely in Poe Dameron from the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy!
I kind of instantly fell in love with him when my dad first took me to see The Force Awakens when it came out, which was a huge surprise for me because Poe was maybe the character I was the least intrigued by at the time (Rey and Finn had me asking far more questions, anyway) and none of the descriptions for him really jumped out to me. But after actually seeing him, I was positively in love, and then quickly downloaded accompanying novels that featured him (Before the Awakening and the TFA novelization) to read more about him, and then in April of 2016, they came out with a comic series for him and that really helped further cement my special interest in him!
It took a huge hit in 2018-most of 2020 because of all the fandom negativity (especially around Poe) but at the end of 2020, I rewatched the sequels back to back for the first time and it flared back to life without me expecting it to and I did a huge deep dive into uuuuuuuuuuuuuh every piece of expanded material he'd appeared in 😅
Basically (I'm not super sure how familiar you are with Star Wars) Poe is one of the best pilots in the Resistance, which is lead by Princess (now General) Leia Organa, and he's her right-hand man/protégé/surrogate son. Barring the Resistance's bombing fleet (which is teeny bc the Resistance is teeny and held together by duct tape) Poe is essentially in charge of its only flight wing and (as far as we know) all* of its squadrons. On top of that, he's also an active intelligence operative, and even helps oversees the reports from the Resistance's spies so like...he's kind of already helping run the Resistance even prior to officially co-running it by the third film with Leia/when he's finally named its official leader.
Poe is super important to me for a lot of reasons, but one of my favorite things about his arc is that it's not centered around romantic love/tension unlike a lot of the other dynamics in the sequel trilogy (altho Oscar did play Poe as being extremely smitten for Finn and who can blame him, and we do meet an ex girlfriend of Poe's in the third movie, I stan a bisexual king). Poe's whole arc is about his duty to the Resistance, his struggles with keeping hope because he's afraid that everything they've (and him) endured and lost will have been for nothing if they lose the fight against the First Order. If there's a love story for Poe's arc, it's his love for the Resistance and his friends, and that's so wonderful and profound in my eyes.
But also the bridge of Poe's arc, from the daring hero we see in tfa and the start of tlj, to the cautious but courageous leader we see at the end of tlj and all of tros, is Poe being forced to accept that his role in this story isn't that of a martyred hero. He's quite literally grounded (his X-Wing is destroyed) and he's pushed into the role of the leader his mentor wants him to be, and TLJ (in my eyes) is the story of someone who full heartedly believed the most he had to offer was a noble self-sacrifice realizing he actually wants to live (and that he can do far more for the Resistance/galaxy by surviving.)
I love Poe a lot because he's also very simple. He's, as Rian Johnson described him, a good guy hero. Unlike other characters, you never doubt whether he's gonna be tempted or corrupted, you know that he's going to do the right thing and remain true to the Light side, you have faith that no matter what obstacle he faces, he's gonna overcome them and come out the other side that much better for it.
The Age of Resistance comic analysis of Poe breaks it down the best, I think:
Poe's inherent humanity is what makes him a great character. He's not someone who struggles with right and wrong or good and evil. Instead, his struggle is more with his tendency to need to be the person who pulls off some last-minute, thrilling heroics in service to the greater good. Because Leia's right: you can't solve everything by jumping in an X-Wing to blow things up.
I could talk for days about Poe (I've spent the last three years doing just that) about the nuances of his character and the depths that largely go unexplored because of Lucasfilm's inexplicable disrespect and dislike of him, the fandom often reducing him to a love interest with no other personality traits, or complete bastardization wherein he resembles Hangman Top Gun more than Poe Dameron (often when people want to oversexualize him).
He has so many qualities that I adore: he's snarky and hot-headed and can throw things (metaphorically) in people's faces when he's particularly upset, he's impulsive, but also kind and compassionate and patient with people. He sees the potential for more/good in folks that most wouldn't. he truly deeply values people, and that's what makes him such an amazing leader: he inspires loyalty because of how much he believes and takes risks in the people around him. He's often the first person to give someone a second chance, or to lower his blaster, but he can also be vindictive. He's confident in his abilities as a pilot to the point he's often mistaken as arrogant, but he never puts anyone down and always lifts people up, and has a lot more insecurities than anyone would guess, and is really sensitive to rejection.
He's also kind of canonically a prince, thanks to the TROS novelization, so you know. I think that's neat and I'm so totally normal about it (when Leia passes away, she leaves her Organa legacy to Poe...the Organa Legacy would be the Royal House Organa - as well as the Resistance. So...Poe is in some ways a prince).
(*which is...three, they only have three squadrons)
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