Tbh I feel like “AXOLOTL” by bumr functions as critique of psychiatric incarceration very very well. When she screams “LET ME OUT” you hear PAIN. Regardless of whether it’s Bill Cipher, a horrible person who murdered everyone from his home dimension and tried to take over earth and would have been happy to kill so so many people to do it, you hear pain when she screams “LET ME OUT”. And while I haven’t read TBOB, what I’m getting from it from @ckret2 is that the Theraprism is a caricature of psychiatric incarceration. And for me, hearing him scream “LET ME OUT” like that only further solidifies for me that there has to be an alternative to that. If there is no other option for stopping someone as hellbent as Bill Cipher from mass murder than restricting their freedom (as opposed to taking away their power, say, if Bill’s powers can’t be stripped from him because they’re part of his form at this point) there has to be at the very least a more humane way of treating him (not as in psychiatrically necessarily but as a fucking person) than the fucking Solitary Wellness Void. There has to be a better way to address people who are violent threats to other people that doesn’t make them scream “LET ME OUT” like that.
