Power doesn’t always show up in volume. Sometimes it shows up in who doesn’t speak.
It took me years to realize that. Years to unlearn the quiet I was taught to carry.
One of the hardest truths I’ve had to face is how often silence was passed down to me as a form of survival. Don’t challenge. Don’t complain. Don’t draw attention. Just adjust. Just accept. Just endure. That was the rhythm. The dance. The performance I was trained to master.
But silence isn’t neutral. It’s not passive. It’s political. It’s strategic. And sometimes, it’s the most insidious kind of control because it doesn’t need enforcement. It becomes internalized.
In Dominion, I wanted to explore how power is performed. Not just by those who hold it, but by those who are forced to navigate it. Power shows up in posture. In fashion. In rules that look like tradition. In politeness that masks surveillance. In the careful smile of someone who knows speaking out could cost them everything.
But I also wanted to show how silence can be both protection and prison. Characters who refuse to speak aren’t weak. Sometimes, they’re calculating. Or exhausted. Or waiting for the right moment to strike. In a world that watches your every move, withholding your voice can be a way to survive. But it can also become a way to disappear.
We perform silence for many reasons. To protect others. To avoid punishment. To belong. To keep peace. But every time we mute our truth—every time we tuck our real thoughts behind a smile or bite our tongue to avoid conflict—we make the system a little stronger. And ourselves a little smaller.
The thing about performances? They get comfortable. They become habit. You learn your cues. You stick to your script. And eventually, you forget where the act ends and where you begin.
But the moment you stop performing, the moment you let your voice rise, however shaky, however uncertain, that’s when the system starts to crack. That’s when the mask slips. That’s when people start to listen differently. Or look away. Or question what they thought was truth.
And that’s when the story shifts.
Because stories don’t change when someone in power speaks louder. They change when someone who wasn’t supposed to speak at all decides they can’t stay silent anymore.
That’s the moment everything begins.
And if you’ve ever found your voice after years of silence, you know exactly what that moment feels like.