God, this is a post I did not want to write, but I feel I have to, because it's cathartic for me and I feel like I (and perhaps others besides) have a lot to process.
I want to begin this post with this image, and I would like for you to keep this firmly in your mind as I write what I do in this post.
CW: gaslighting, suicidal ideation and attempts, racism, misogyny, xenophobia, sexual assault, rape, mentions of child sexual assault
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In the weeks leading up to the creation of moonlighting, the most recent Two Meeps song to date, I was gaslit by someone in a position of authority. I was made to feel like I didn't have a functioning decision centre, or that I was crazy for insisting that I had done something that this person insisted I did not. The gaslighter in question happened to be that authority's regional manager.
Unfortunately, my experience is by no means unique: there are many who have reported similar instances to their instructors. What we have been dealing with, subsequently, is a system where the people running it are so convinced that they can commit no error. When you've got a system like that, it's ripe for abuse. If I dealt with gaslighting, for example, what's to stop someone from sexually assaulting someone under their care and basically getting away with it because cameras are not allowed, and no external vetting is allowed? The fox is guarding the henhouse. I think we know exactly what kinds of problems can ensue from things like this.
Gaslighting can kill. When an authority repeatedly tells you that you are something you're not, or that you did something you didn't, and they have absolute power over your life and liberty, gaslighting can kill. I should know, because I was gaslit by the Home Office multiple times during the asylum process. And, again, I'm far from alone; there are countless reports now about the level of repeated, enforced falsehood coming from the Home Office against many migrants, refugees, and those who came here with Windrush. And the Home Office are far from alone in thinking that they are above the law with regards to abuse, as countless reports have told us.
When I wrote moonlighting, and when Christoph and I recorded it, I was suicidal (again, gaslighting can kill). Already repeatedly disbelieved by the authority that gaslit me, I hoped that, with this song, the things I went through, my decisions, my intentions, my emotions, my musicianship, would matter.
I want to continue this post by stating that these are my feelings specifically, and not Christoph's, because if anything, he has great faith in my musicianship and my emotional literacy; we are still a band and he has taken everything on the chin. It's not the contest that makes us a band, nor is it the benchmark for our music, he's told me things along those lines. If anything, I admire his placidity in all of this.
Again, and I iterate, speaking personally, the only mistake I made with this song, which I will concede was a mistake, was ever submitting this to the Newgrounds Audio Deathmatch. Because, while four people checked in on me from the judging panel and treated me like I mattered, the way I was then, it really felt like I didn't. It really, truly felt like everything I poured into that song, and the circumstances behind it, didn't matter.
So what does someone who feels they don't matter do about their most powerful, most cherished craft? They toss it aside. They feel, "I'm not gonna be listened to, not really, not for who I am or what I'm going through. All they want is a mask." And that's how I genuinely feel about Newgrounds Audio right now. I know that there are many who do cherish what I do, and I'm grateful for that. But these events, and more of what I'm about to write, have cemented the belief that here, what I have to bring as a musician does not matter.
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Let's talk, momentarily, about the subject of the image I placed at the beginning of this post, he who shall go nameless.
Because GOD, NOBODY WANTS A SONG ABOUT THE LITERAL CAUSE OF THEIR SUICIDE ATTEMPT TO BE PRESCIENT. Like, nobody wants what they went through to happen to anyone, even to a small degree. If anything, we want this world to be better.
He who shall go nameless, whose account is no more thanks to the efforts of Staff, was someone who, at least for a time when none of this happened, was a friend to many on this site.
I was an asylum seeker at the time all of this was happening. I want to state for the record that I was friends with this person from 2013, the year my asylum claim began. He was one of the people who led the fight to successfully DMCA claim Geometry Dash from Steam, even though I personally was the flashpoint of anger from many audio thieves of the time.
I know that my specific set of circumstances predispose me to being reticent to trust people. I have been through a specific kind of weathering due to Home Office abuse, and abuse from multiple other parties over this last decade and before. As such, I find it hard to endear myself to people, and I'm grateful for everyone who considers me a friend. So it really boggles me that someone would have so much energy to dedicate to so many things. At first, I thought, different strokes for everyone I guess.
To be honest, I don't know if others think similarly to the way I do. I hope I'm not alone in thinking so. When the desperation and the attention baiting happened with increasing frequency, I wondered what had caused the change. After all, there was a time when he who shall go nameless did not ever do an act so despicable. People responding to his Twitter posts were saying things along the lines of mate, your desperation is pushing your friends and others away, and perhaps they were right. But I couldn't bring myself to think that. On Facebook, where similar posts were being made, those garnered little to no reacts and few comments if any, except if they were concerning and verging on suicidal.
And why, you ask, could I not bring myself to think that? Because there are actual desperate people, Dave. At the time all of this was going on I was languishing for years on end without the right to work, the Home Office constantly gaslighting me and telling me that my talents and the things I had to bring did not matter, the Home Office constantly gaslighting me about my relationship with my now husband and telling me that our relationship is a sham when we'd been engaged for YEARS by that point. And you know what? That sort of gaslighting kills. Being sent back to danger is dangerous and often fatal for asylum seekers. And at that time, I at least had the freedom of forming a support network of people I could call my found family, simply because I rejected any financial support the Home Office offered me. That financial support is a poisoned chalice for many, for it means that they are lumped into dilapidated accommodation, given food not even fit for animals, given water poisoned with Legionella, cramped into houses with red doors and made into constant targets for violence and racist abuse. Oh, and did I mention? They have curfews imposed on them, unlike me. I could go to an open mic safely at least. Many of them cannot.
And of course, excluding the whole asylum seeker situation I endured, there are so many people in need of fundraising for health because of broken health infrastructure, or for mitigation of awful things that happened to them or their loved ones.
And so I thought, if this is the reaction being given to someone who is this well-known on NG when he's desperate, what's gonna happen to people who are actually desperate but less well-known? Are we gonna be treated worse? For a long, long time, I was terrified of ever asking for help, and when I did, on my own server or through DMs somewhere, I broke down. Trust issues made it that much harder.
It dawned on me that they got more frequent at the time the abusive action happened. I didn't know. I can only presume that nearly none of us did, until the victim bravely came out with what happened to her.
So why was moonlighting prescient? Oh, Frank, you're gonna love this. Douglas, sit tight. Abdul, you hear me?
It's because, after news broke about he who shall not be named, this guy tried to gaslight everyone into believing that this victim of his was just a person from his past trying to stir shit. Of course, it was a lot more serious than that. And then, this guy HAD THE GALL to create alt accounts pretending to be mutuals of both himself and his victim, while constantly trying to paint his victim, A LITERAL CHILD at the time that this was all happening, as an imperfect victim. Even more gaslighting. But this time, on an industrial scale, with the hopes that the entirety of NG Audio would be swayed.
It doesn't fucking matter. One, gaslighting kills. Two, the victim was a literal child.
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I am one of a long, looooooooong list of women and non-binary people who have been sexually assaulted and worse at some point in our lives. The discourse surrounding a "perfect victim" is very related to rape culture. It's no different from what SWOOP said in that one video of hers about the culture that brought about the convicted paedophile Josh Duggar, about how "oh what was she wearing though" or "their skirt was one inch too short."
Nobody ever asks to be raped or assaulted, or sent unsolicited sexual imagery. Nobody ever asks to be gaslit. Those are boundaries that, once crossed, cannot be uncrossed.
And, in the midst of all of this, if you have suffered this and at the same time, are treated like you don't matter, it's gotta fuck you up so hard. I have been feeling nothing but empathy for the victim in all of this, for I can't imagine the pain she's going through.
The tentacles that her abuser spread on this site have been far-reaching and as such, everyone in Newgrounds Audio has been affected. Entire bridges have been burnt. Those of us who had projects that failed to be achieved with him were grateful that they never came to fruition. For my part, the NGAP15 Audio Drama not ever coming to fruition was a blessing in disguise... it would have been terrible to have something with so many names, and his name there as one of the main cast, something that I can only imagine would traumatise many for a long time to come.
But also, all the events that I spoke about in this entire post have soured my relationship with Newgrounds Audio.
To be clear, I know that it's only really a few people that have done their job, made their decisions, whatever they may be, that the prescient song did not make it to the next round of the Audio Deathmatch. And to be clear, I bear no slight AT ALL against LordAndiso; I feel he was one of the more imaginative people to take part in the Deathmatch, and if he does not finish this round, I'm going to be a bit gutted for him. (I saw the forum post that popped up today and I was starting to get concerned.)
However, put yourself in the shoes of someone who went through the same things that happened in this massive blown-out dumpster fire that has affected Newgrounds in recent times.
Is it any fucking wonder that I don't feel safe to express myself on NG Audio anymore? I was at my most vulnerable, having been gaslit and then this gaslighting doubled down on; I did what any musician would have done: I wrote from what I knew, and what I knew at that point was a total loss of my will to live, tethered to this earth only by my husband and by a few staunch friends. It got treated like it didn't matter. And then finally, when abuse was discovered to have happened to someone else, and then when we were all collectively gaslit and the perp was someone we all knew and who wielded considerable influence, I was like, "I told you so........"
Yeah. I fucking told you all so. And you didn't listen.
And my voice joins a long litany of voices of people who have spoken up about similar issues before today, but were not listened to until shit hit the fan.
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P.S.: In one final act of... rebellion? defiance? I don't know what to call it anymore... when spoonman420 was feeling very anxious about his Round 3 submission, I encouraged him to tap into that anxiety.
Because our emotions and our intentions matter, and we have every right to channel them and, crucially, feel safe to do so. I go on about emotional literacy in my craft because, for a long time after much of the abuse I faced, I built walls around myself, as anyone going through similar would. My friends, my found family, encouraged me to lean into my emotions and understand what I was feeling and why these emotions were there.
This helped me process many more things in the years to come. What I believed was a happy side effect of this help I received from them was that it helped my musical expression.
And quite frankly, I'd rather that intentions and emotions mattered in someone's music, after what I went through.
