I want to talk a little bit about Daniel in the Interview with the Vampire show, because the new trailer material has me stuck thinking about him, and also I’ve never written about how meaningful he is as disabled character to me before.

I don’t see many people thinking about show!Daniel in these terms, but he’s a canon disabled character. And I think the way he is written is just SO good. The acerbic wit, his relationship to doctors and his medication, his rueful acceptance of the way his disability has changed him. It is all so correct!! It’s really incredibly rare to have not only a disabled character written this well but specifically a chronically ill character written this well. His illness is always present; it doesn’t get forgotten about by the story. It gives Daniel insight into the vampires (more on this in a min), but it also gives Louis and Armand leverage over him. When Louis triggers his Parkinson’s symptoms? Deeply not ok. But that’s what made it such a great scene, and really made Louis feel dangerous and threateningin that moment. Armand and Louis arranging Daniel’s meds is a sign of great care and also great power over Daniel. It’s the perfect way to communicate the complicated power dynamic in their relationship.

I also just fucking love that this show takes place in 2022 and doesn’t erase the pandemic. Covid is a very present concern for Daniel and I cannot describe how validating that is for me as someone who is clinically vulnerable to Covid and who has had to really limit my life and take a lot of precautions because everyone else has decided to stop caring whether they pass on Covid or not. The fact that Daniel gets on a plane to Dubai is a BIG DEAL. He’s risking his life to talk to Louis and Armand before he’s even in the room with them. He really wants to be there. I have to make a similar calculation every time I travel, and trust me, getting on that plane knowing getting sick could spiral you into even worse health or kill you is really hard.

I think making Daniel disabled and including the pandemic is kind of a genius level decision on a thematic level. Of course Daniel is now facing down his mortality, which gives him a whole new lens on the vampires and the fact that he once asked them to turn him. And the pandemic further highlights his fragility, and is also possibly being used as a cover for drama that’s happening in the vampire world. But I think it also really sets Daniel up as a foil to Louis.

There’s a lot of analysis of the vampire chronicles that reads vampirism as a metaphor for queerness. But I would actually propose that it’s a much neater parallel for disability and illness in a lot of ways. So many of Louis’s initial experiences after being turned resonated with me, as someone who became chronically ill in my 20s. My appetite and relationship to food completely changed, much like Louis. My relationship with the outdoors and the sun changed, because of dysautonomia and allergy reasons. I was very mad, and very depressed, and I too have missed out on birthday parties and big life events like Louis did because I was too sick to go. Hell, you can even say that the way that Louis is treated as evil by his family, that the way vampires literally can’t be a part of society during the day, is reminiscent of ableist exclusion and ugly laws. (Ugly laws were laws that forbid disabled people, especially those with visible differences, from being out in public, and they were on the books in many American municipalities until the 1970s.) You can look at Lestat being an out and proud vampire in the first few episodes on the season and imploring Louis to leave his shame behind as a queer thing, but you can also view it as a disabled thing. Disabled people are portrayed as monstrous so often (and in a way that has gone relatively unexamined compared to say, the queer coded villain trope) that sometimes it’s just easier to embrace that label: I’m the monstrous Crip, but at least I’m not ashamed of or disgusted by who I am anymore.

I do think the real strength of this adaptation is that while you can find parallels between queerness or disability or other forms of marginalization with vampirism, ultimately it’s not a one-to-one parallel. It speaks to the real world but ultimately it is a gothic horror story about supernatural monsters. So I don’t mean to say that vampirism directly equals disability, because it does not. But I do think that making Daniel disabled was an intentional choice to help draw out some of those parallels, and I think the text is richer for it.

So Louis and Daniel have had these kind of parallel experiences of uncontrollable and difficult things happening to their bodies. It sets them up perfectly as foils, and even, I would argue, as the A plot and B Plot protagonists. This is one of my favorite ways of kind of examining the structure of a TV show (or maybe it’s that most of my favorite shows seem to be structured this way?). When TV was all episodic, it would be common to refer to the A plot (mystery of the week), B plot (interpersonal drama happening as the mystery gets solved) and C plot (any overarching plot tying the season together) in an episode. Now that stuff is serialized, there’s often a main protagonist, who has the main dramatic question and the most agency, and then there is often a secondary B plot that explores similar themes and mirrors the A plot, or presents a second main character who is the ldifferent side of the same coin” to the main protagonist. (My favorite example of this is Flint and Max in Black Sails, and I’ve also made the argument that Wilhelm and Sara fit this pattern in Young Royals.) In IwtV, Louis is obviously the main protagonist of the show, especially in the A Plot, which is the stuff taking place in New Orleans/Paris. But I would argue that Daniel is the protagonist of the B Plot set in Dubai. At the very least they’re intentionally set up as mirrors of each other:

They are both unreliable narrators, who are struggling with the way memory contorts (through memory erasure, illness, deliberate obfuscations, and just the passage of time). The most recent teaser trailer, where we hear Louis saying “I don’t remember that”, with panic in his voice, further underlined this similarity between Louis and Daniel to me. I don’t know if it means that Louis has also had his memory tampered with, as I’m assuming Daniel has, but I do think it means that Louis is going to be struggling with feeling out of control of his own narrative more in season 2, a thing that was already starting for Daniel in season 1.

They are also both locked into power struggles with people more powerful than they are. The fact that Louis is under Lestat in the flashbacks and above Daniel in the Dubai scenes in terms of power/status makes it all the more interesting. And, if we want to go ahead and assume that the Devils Minion’s years have happened in the past by the time we get to Dubai— it’s possible that both Daniel and Louis are united in being the less powerful partner in their own respective fucked up gothic romances.

They’re also both the audience’s entry point into their respective stories. Louis’s narration guides us into the world of vampires. Daniel’s questioning satisfies our human curiosity in Dubai.

I think one of the things that makes the show so special is the way that these two protagonists interact. In a lot of shows the a plot and the b plot stay pretty separate. I love talking about Black Sails for this because I think it’s such a good example; Flint and Max never exchange dialogue the entire show, even though they’re so clearly affecting each other the whole time. But the way that Louis and Daniel clash in Dubai is so exciting. We see them both wrestling for control of the narrative. It’s thrilling to watch and it just hammers home the theme of how complicated and changeable stories can be.

I am SO excited to see how the Dubai scenes play out in season 2 because of it. I really can’t wait. I’m really hoping we’ll see Daniel and Louis’s relationship evolve in surprising ways, and I’m holding my breath that we’ll get a lot of Armandaniel material to work with. (I have a whole other post drafted that’s much less smart than this one and is just me waxing poetic about Devil Minion’s theories which I may post at some point. You have been warned.)

I do have two wishes for Daniel in the new season, and they’re 1: that he gets to have romance/sex, because disabled (and older!) characters are so often seen as unworthy of being desired, and I would like to see that challenged and 2: that he continues to refuse to be turned/is not offered a vampiric cure for Parkinson’s. The magic cure for a disability or chronic illness is probably my least favorite disability trope, because it serves to erase disabled characters and representation from the narrative, and I want to see my experiences continue to be reflected in Daniel’s. That means that whatever ending Daniel’s story has will probably have at least a bit of tragedy baked into it, but I’m ok with that.

"Best Practices in Action by Dylan Rothbein

When it comes to best practices in media and accessibility, which is my main concern with Dylan Rothbein Liberty Coalition, too many companies have decided to ignore disability or tokenizing disabled in their brand which is not accessibility or social model of disability. There is one company however that deserves to be celebrated for their leadership and best practices which is Crip Video Productions. Crip Video Productions has put out 4 short films which showcase disabled actors in their natural habitats and each actor get accommodations. Crip Video Productions follows the ADA to the letter which is a best practice. Crip Video Productions exists to make sure everyone has value from conception to natural death. Crip Video Productions has also partnered with many organizations like Students Unlimited at Kingsborough, Teatro Paraguas, and Dylan Rothbein Liberty Coalition, and embodies Nothing About Us Without Us because everyone has a disability or is an allay. I was hired by this company to produce “What The Body Believes” a collaboration between Crip Video Productions and CUNY. Crip Video Productions also conducts ethical business practices every day because our director makes sure everyone is compensated in some way. So many times disabled people are exploited but not at Crip Video Productions. This is why it is an honor to be affiliated with this company which is disability oriented, stands for free speech and free expression, and knows every life matters.     Crip Video Productions excels and employs best practices at all stages, our director makes sure shoot locations are accessible so we can contribute our skills as human beings not just because we are disabled. In casting our casting director sees the potential in every actor regardless of experience because Crip Video Productions believes in opportunity and responsibility. In post production Crip Video Productions excels at audio description, with audio description on each production and screen reader access so I am honored to work there as a blind person and I know that no matter how impaired I get I will always have a place at Crip Video Productions. Crip Video Productions is a role model for the disabled because many disabled people feel like they can’t start a business but our director is also a writer and editor with Cerebral Palsy, which teaches us you can succeed with a TBI.  "

References 

Cole, Margot. “Crip Video Productions” 2023 www.cripvideoproductions.com 

“Dylan Rothbein Linkedin” 2023 https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylan-rothbein-a86140147 

Cole, Margot. ”3 presentations in a single day!” Crip Video Productions 2020. https://cripvideoproductions.tumblr.com/post/190517942026/3-presentations-in-a-single-day 

“Students Unlimited” https://www.kbcc.cuny.edu/access-ability/contact.html 

“Teatro Paraguas” teatroparaguasnm.org  

This is a review of Crip Video Productions by Dylan Rothbein posted with permission. Dylan Rothbein is the producer on a new Crip Video Productions film project which is a collaboration between PSC CUNY and Professor Mary Lynn Navarro. Happy Disability Pride Month/Disability History Month from Crip Video Productions!

Dylan Rothbein Liberty Coalition is seperate from Crip Video Productions.

Blind/Visually Impaired Person’s Review Of ‘The Blind Bandit’

It is here! At almost 6 thousand words (I have a problem lol). This is a review of season 2, episode 6 in Avatar: the Last Airbender. The episode is called The Blind Bandit.

Note that this is only a review of the portrayal of blindness rather than the episode or show itself. This show also has audio descriptions on Netflix so any blind followers of mine can watch the show if the want to. I would also like to make it clear that this is my opinion. It is my no means lacking in bias and I won’t pretend that it is. I love this character for some of the reasons I will explain here, and that will show even as I consider criticisms of her or things that simply could have been better.

This character, Toph, was my first exposure to a blind character in television.

CHARACTER INTRO:

“Your champion, The Blind Bandit!”

We first hear Toph introduced as The Blind Bandit. She is described as having pale eyes which is usually how eye conditions are conveyed visually. Some online sources describe them as light grey or sea form green, but glazed over. This could be due to cataracts or some other deterioration. Part of me wants to mention that not all blind people have eyes like this. Most don’t; I don’t. However, blind people can have many eye problems outside of just The Blindness, so it isn’t inaccurate either, especially for a time period where eye surgeries are not available, and Waterbenders are not as easy to reach for healings as they may have been before the war. I also suspect her family would not care about cataracts if Toph was not in pain— their main issue would be her blindness. I’m getting ahead of myself.

The point is, I don’t mind the way her eyes are portrayed here. I do think non-blind people are too obsessed with portraying eyes like this, however, and I feel like it is not necessary in non-visual media unless you have established why their eyes are cloudy/lighter/Like That other than Because Blind. I’m happy they didn’t fall into the trap of portraying her eyes as constantly closed.

I also read somewhere that the creators tried not to move her eyes much. I don’t know how true this goal was, but I feel it is not entirely necessary. Blind people can also have uncontrollable eye movements or rapid eye movements. This might be too hard to animate and too confusing for viewers. Therefore, I feel the creators chose a more practical portrayal of eye movements that is the easiest to animate and least confusing for people who may not know blind eyes can and do move, whether due a condition or other factors.

“She can’t really be blind, can she?”

I like that everyone says “blind” without stumbling over it or treating it as a bad word. Katara is surprised and Aang is accepting, feeling hopeful that this girl could at last be his teacher. I even like that she chose to capitalize on it for her persona. Already we can tell Toph has no issue with being blind, nor does she feel the need to hide it in such a setting as this. She is already the champion— it must be working for her. It is this openness and acceptance of blindness that I like, especially from the main character. Rather than make her hide her blindness or angst over something she has lived with all her life, the writers just introduced it as fact. She’s blind and she’s a champion. That is how we meet Toph.

“Sounds to me like you’re scared, Boulder!”

Trash talk. She’s trash talking him. If the champion thing was not an indication that this wasn’t your stereotypical innocent, blind flower, her first line should be! Already Toph is brash and fearless. A far cry from the angelic stereotype we often get in the media.

“Your winner, and still the champion, The Blind Bandit!”

Toph kicks Boulder Butt. Pretty easily. I loved every second of it.

Now let’s talk about the Super Crip trope here.

IS TOPH A SUPERCRIP?

The Supercrip trope is a bit hard to pin down. I found a few definitions floating around. This link has two: Trope: SuperCrip | #CriticalAxis: a community driven project from The Disabled List

The Supercrip is seen as having “overcome” their disability in order to do normal things or even extraordinary things— with a focus on their disability rather than their accomplishments.

The first part is avoided. The narrative doesn’t focus on how extra special it is that Toph is doing things like: walking, talking, eating soup, sitting with her family, yelling at Aang and his friends, etc. Toph is not seen as extra special for doing normal things that her disability does not make more difficult. Not only would this be patronizing and ignorant, this would reflect that attitudes many real life strangers have: disabled people are so strange and mystical to some people that they feel the need to ask blind people on the street how they walk or talk.

Personally, I find this portrayal of disabled people to be the most harmful. It caters to able-bodied onlookers alone and offers nothing for disabled people. To clarify: the problem is not portraying disabled people/characters doing normal things! The problem is expecting your audience to feel inspired because a disabled person did a thing that is completely ordinary for them.

This does not apply to Toph.

Another definition is that a disabled person is portrayed as “overcoming” their disability in order to do something cool/big, usually something able-bodied people don’t do everyday. This disabled person is only noteworthy because they did something extraordinary such as win several gold medals. This presents two problems: 1) it is hard for disabled people to meet these expectations, especially when this is shown as the only positive way to live with a disability. And 2) able-bodied people see this and believe all disabled people must be winning gold medals or doing super extraordinary things because their disability somehow gives them privilege, pity-points, or superhuman powers that make up for their disability. An example of these powers would be the myth that blind people have superhuman hearing rather than simply using their hearing more than sighted people and thus being more attuned to sound. An example of pity-points would be the time my family was watching Dancing With the Stars featuring a blind contestant. After the dance, someone remarked that the contestant would probably get sympathy points and go on to the next round. Her talent was not a factor the same way it was for the able-bodied contestants; pity-points could not be separated from her success. It was impossible that she would be supported and judged the same way as the others, with her blindness being only an extra factor that might make copying a dance to learn it more challenging for her. Keep in mind, these ideas are so ingrained in people that my own family believed it in even when they know me and several of my blind friends.

Let’s consider Tooh:

Pity-Points? - Not even a factor. This was not brought up by Aang, nor Katara, nor Sokka. It was certainly not thought of by the owner of the battle ring nor Toph’s opponents. In fact, she was only doubted when she lost. Her talent was never viewed as the result of someone else’s pity or reduced to inspiration for an able-bodied wrestling audience. The announcer says her name and nothing else. Her parents don’t bring up the idea that Toph only wins because she was pitied either. They witnessed her bending and only believed they needed to protect her more, not that she was not talented.

Privilege? - It is no question that Tooh’s family is rich. It is hard to say how much that affects her here. She has a tutor who undermines her growth and is pretty much useless. She has protection she doesn’t want and riches she doesn’t seem to use. She does have more free time to battle as a result of her riches, not having to work at a young age (although her parents probably would not have let her even if they needed the money). Toph’s family status could have been seen as playing a role in her winning— if her parents allowed the world to know about her. - It is no secret that Toph is rich, however, when privilege is brought up by able-bodied people, they don’t usually mean riches (although the stereotypical rich disabled person is something I could discuss at a later time). They usually mean some combination of government benefits that may or may not exist and pity points. Disability makes things HARDER, not easier. A person can have multiple privileges they did not earn, or lack of privileges they did not ask for. Toph does not gain special privileges due to her disability, nor does she ask for or expect them. My opinion is that no one asks for this, anyway.

Super-human? - This one is a little trickier. It is the one people are obviously hung up on when they consider Toph. It is difficult to consider this without considering Toph’s entire arc. However, I have chosen to focus on her bending and “sight” and how it is used in this episode. I may talk about this more if I do other reviews. - First, bending. Toph is not the only bender in the series. She is also not the only good bender, as Katara is also someone who grows into her bending and becomes particularly powerful. Aang is already a master of airbending in addition to being the Avatar. He is special and particularly powerful, mastering water quickly. Azula is also said to be a prodigy and has mastered lightning at 14. The point is, Toph is a powerful bender. She is not the only powerful bender in the world. The Avatar needs someone to teach him and that person would, reasonably, have mastered their bending in order to teach the Avatar. - Now for Toph’s bending in relation to her blindness. It is true that Toph is powerful AND blind— is she powerful in spite of being blind? Is she powerful because her blindness gives her superpowers? This is tricky. To me, the narrative doesn’t go out of its way to say “she overcame her blindness and was able to win”. It also doesn’t show blindness as a superpower, such as causing superior hearing. - How is it portrayed then? First, Toph never has to “overcome” her blindness, which is important. The obstacle is the limitations placed on her. The obstacle is society, not her disability. Toph does not need to accept her blindness before doing anything, because she has been blind since birth. She does not have to overcome her blindness before fighting or becoming a champion because when we are introduced to her, she already was. She is not expected to overcome her disability in order to teach Aang; he tries to recruit her without seeing her disability as an issue. She does not need overcome her disability because it is not what stops her, as is the case for most people. There are some things being blind makes difficult, different, or impossible to do, but this isn’t one of them. Blind people can learn to fight. They can win. And when people reduce such accomplishments as “overcoming disability”, it can feel like a misdirection, like a dismissal of hard work and talent.

This does not happen with Toph.

Second, does Toph’s blindness give her superpowers? Maybe. I feel like it might be necessary to cover Toph in other episodes. However, this review is focusing mostly on The Blind Bandit and so I will focus on Toph’s unique “sight”. Toph’s bending is unique from others because she can feel the vibrations in the ground, allowing her to sense objects and people. This ability allows her to fight and beat others. In my opinion, this is more of an adaptation perfected through sheer amount of practice. Katara and Zuko don’t always bend. Toph is using her bending constantly. Of course she would be good at it. Her bending is a tool for her use. Fighting? That’s just a bonus, a hobby.

Toph also has weaknesses and is in fact beaten by Aang, who wasn’t even trying. Losing to someone who had no intention of winning is a pretty big deal.

Personally, I don’t think Toph is a supercrip in this episode. She is a Blind Seer, a trope popular in literature. The Blind Seer can’t see physically, but they can see in other ways you can’t. I don’t have an issue with this trope and think it can be used in cool ways, especially if the blind character isn’t the only one with a superpower.

I do, however, want people to question why a blind character always needs to have a power that relates to or makes up for their lack of sight in some way. Unless you are making a deliberate allusion to something or a blind is not the only one with sight-related powers, I ask writers to question why they jump to sight-related powers in the first place. Or powers related to hearing, something to “make up for” their lack of sight.

Can this be done well? Absolutely. Toph, while she can fall into both The Blind Seer and the Supercrip tropes for some people, she is beloved and interesting for many fans, blind or sighted.

I ask people to trace their logic about why they choose to give their blind character powers related to sight. What kind of power is it? Does it make up for (aka erase) their blindness and make them less relatable to blind readers/watchers? Are they the only blind character and/or the only person with such a power? Can they have another power? What works and does not work for good characters like Toph? Why?

Getting rid of these particular tropes are not the answer. I simply invite people to consider other options, try new things, think critically about why and what woks or doesn’t work in other characters.

I absolutely invite blind writers to use whatever tropes they want, as they can probably write it in a more nuanced way.

My personal opinion about the Supercrip trope is that it is somehow focused on success or talent as the enemy without recognizing what it means. Wanting to succeed is not wrong. Being competitive is refreshing!

It isn’t really about doing super things or not— it is about disabled people being made to feel like they will not be successful, accepted, or taken seriously if they do not win everything or succeed at impossible feats. Able-bodied people are permitted to exist without needing to prove anything. Disabled people are not afforded that respect.

Either disabled people fight against the ingrained expectation that they simply cannot do anything, that will FAIL, because of their disability, or they fight against the realization that, for many people, even impossible feats will never be enough. Their accomplishments will never be seen as just that— accomplishments.

Blind characters should be talented or hard-working, prodigies or people who claw their way to the top. Their disability may be an obstacle and it may, in fact, barely even be necessary to mention aside from adaptive tools. The Supercrip is so alluring because people are under the impression blind people— and disabled people as a whole— cannot do anything. To the point that some condescendingly assume certain things are impossible because they did not think of adaptive techniques or technology. This is why research is important.

Remember why this trope/stereotype exists: for the inspiration of able-bodied people who are uninterested in making changes in society’s attitudes and the amount of accessibility it provides. Problematic tropes like this usually have a specific issue behind them and you cannot tackle or discuss r subvert the trope until you understand the harmful reason it exists.

Not everyone agrees with me. Here are some reading materials:

On the pervasive Supercrip trope in martial arts:

http://feministing.com/2010/02/19/media-portrayal-of-disability-and-martial-arts-a-personal-statement/

On the pressure this trope puts on blind people:

Challenging the ‘Supercrip’ Stereotype of People With Disabilities | The Mighty

[In the comments, I would prefer people not speculate about Toph being a Supercrip or not if they aren’t blind themselves. It would be more helpful to focus on other aspects of this review or share posts by other blind people instead.]

Keep in mind, this is only a review of one episode. And I personally will take a powerful disabled character over a powerless, sad one anytime.

This concludes our commercial break. Back to the show.

BEING BLIND IN EARTH KINGDOM SOCIETY

Earth Kingdom Boy 1: “Well, a flying boar is the symbol of the Beifong family. They’re the richest people in town. Probably whole world.” Earth Kingdom Boy 2: “Yeah, but they don’t have a daughter.”

Now this is interesting. It implies that Toph is: a) hiding herself well so as to keep up her double life and/or b) being hidden by her family. I suspect it is a little of both. A) is pretty obvious, especially with the wall surrounding their estate, while b) could be due to overprotectiveness or shame on the part of her parents. Shame may seem harsh. However, this is not exactly a modern time period and respect for disabled people can vary depending on culture, time, place, and individual attitudes.

When portraying poor social attitudes toward disabled characters, writers must work hard to show the attitudes as wrong and work to reduce them. I do feel that, like with gender discrimination, people tend to preemptively assume accepting disability is modern and Western concept- and that any ableism is fair game because it is realistic. That is far from the truth, especially if they get it wrong.

Too much and it could be mistaken for an excuse to be ableist. Too little and it may seem like erasure of societal barriers faced by blind people.

Let’s see how the ATLA writers handle this.

TOPH’S “SIGHT” AND MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

Anyway, the Gaang finds Toph again. Toph: “What are doing here, Twinkle Toes?” Aang: “How did you know it was me?”

Two things stick out here. I love that The Gaang interacts with her normally and this episode is not about the able-bodied characters learning how to treat a disabled person like a person, nor is it about them confronting their biases. Instead, they have a favor to ask, one that Toph cannot grant. The episode shifts focus onto Toph and her emotions and needs.

I also liked that Aang asks how she knew it was him. This is a common question and it seems to be asked in curiosity rather than implied judgment or suspicion on Aang’s part, as is often the case nowadays. Later in the episode, Toph explains how she knew, but she could also have recognized his footsteps (light as they are) with or without her bending. Blind people are also usually more reliant on hearing or smell and so may pick up on scents or sounds others do not. That is not to say their hearing or smell are superior (see the Supercrip discussion), but that they are used more often. This is how I conceptualize Toph’s bending— it is something she uses all day, every day. Like her hearing and smell and touch, she is more reliant on these senses and so uses them in ways others don’t.

I do wish we had a few more examples of this in the episode/show rather than Toph using her bending for every situation. As I said, I do not mind that she can “see” with bending as it is not true sight, but showing how she uses other senses would have been nice details.

TOPH’S PARENTS HAVE ENTERED THE RING

Toph: “I thought I heard something! I got scared.” Guard: “You know your father doesn’t want you wandering the grounds without supervision, Toph.”

With this, we can understand her father is overprotective, so much so that Toph is able to believably pull off this act of helplessness in front of the guards. Her father does not believe even walking around her own home is safe for her.

With that in mind, it is NOT a plot hole that she can walk around her home in front of her parents. Even overprotected blind kids don’t use canes or need a guide within their own homes as they often memorize the layout. Canes are not usually used inside ones own home or very familiar areas. Outside areas might be an exception as they are likely to change due to nature or redesign, but generally familiar, casual areas do not warrant canes or guides. It is completely believable that Toph can walk around in her own home without causing suspicion.

Toph’s father, indicating soup placed in front of her: “Blow on it. It’s too hot for her.”

Not only is her father overprotective, he is infantilizing. He thinks she can’t blow on her own soup and must be confined to basic stances of bending, something Toph is clearly unhappy with. Toph’s parents are the kind of people who wouldn’t let her watch TV lol!

Toph’s father: “And sadly, because of her blindness, I don’t think she will ever become a true master.”

There it is. There are many people in the world who have this mindset, believing disabled people succeeding is unrealistic, or only achieved by pity-driven intervention from others for inspirational purposes or a lie told by overly soft parenting. Toph’s father may seem radical, but his views are very common even for those close to a blind person. Even for those who might like the inspirational stories about blind people doing things.

HOW TOPH SEES THE WORLD

Toph: “It’s kind of like seeing with my feet.”

This is where I disagree with some interpretations of Toph. She can sense where things are and what they are. She has a wider range than someone with a cane would. However, I don’t know if this is quite erasing her blindness. Could they have done better? Yes. However, to claim the show made her sighted with magic is not quite fitting to me. Toph is not seeing with a magical potion, nor did Katara heal her blindness. She is using a power a lot of people in the ATLA universe have in bending, one she has used her entire life and perfected through sheer number of practice hours. I think it helps that she did not get this power, narratively, because she was blind. Rather she is a blind person who adapted a skill to her use.

A cane or an animal guide might have helped make the narrative more relatable for blind people, however. They could have also played up being unable to see people’s facial expressions. In other episodes, they show areas where she is unable to bend, such as on ice, sand, or floating objects like the warship or Appa.

In these instances, they could have shown sighted guide.

However, I think what they did worked. Would I suggest anyone else try it? Maybe not. It depends on their motivation for doing it. Toph’s powers basically act as a cane or Sunnu band would. They aren’t a magic spell letting her see all the time.

They could have done a little better— I still think it worked. It does not seem to have unfortunate implications of sight being better than blindness or blindness needing special cures.

For writing purposes, it is important to understand why this worked, how it was portrayed, factor in that bending is not unique to Toph, understand the nature of her ‘sight’, and understand what they could have done better. Just because it works here doesn’t mean it will work everywhere. It is important for writers to understand that and question their motivation for giving their character a different kind of vision.

THE DISABILITY EPISODE - AVOIDED

Toph’s father: “My daughter is blind. She is blind and tiny and helpless and fragile. She cannot help you.” Toph: “Yes. I can.”

Some may feel uncomfortable that Toph’s first episode is about her parents doubting her, dealing with ableism and being forced into stereotypes by her own family. It is important to remember that this is a show for children and any blind children watching it will have dealt with similar issues from adults in their lives. The show doesn’t seem to say this is the only narrative a blind character can have, but rather that it is a relatable occurrence for blind children who are watching it.

Toph also has many episodes left — this is only the beginning. This is hardly her only arc, and even her personality and abilities challenge so many stereotypes.

In most shows, the blind character gets one episode. Toph, however, is a main character.

Toph is also a well-rounded and interesting character with agency. She hardly seems like an inspirational puppet for adults.if this show had been written for adults or if Toph had been focusing on wanting to become a champion “despite her blindness”, I might have felt upset. It goes to show how important nuance is when writing disabled characters and how powerful it can be to make an effort to challenge stereotypes.

This is not how we first see Toph— helpless, unproductive. Instead, we FIRST see her out in the world kicking butt with her bending skill and I think that it is important.

NOT SO HELPLESS AFTER ALL

Toph’s father uses these words to describe her: Tiny, helpless, fragile. Unable to help others. Unexpected to become a true master or even advance beyond breathing techniques.

Toph challenges all of these at some point. She helps Aang defeat the bad guys. She faces many people in battle and wins, remaining an undefeated champion until Aang accidentally beats her. She advances far beyond basic bending techniques. Toph is good at very active things, with bending as a martial art and as a sport here. It is refreshing to see blind characters being so active and a stark contrast to the passive image her father has of his blind daughter. She does things for herself, including developing her bending style without the help of a master who limits her- and she hides her double life well. Toph’s ability and personality also challenge notions of fragility: she is boisterous and fearless, stubborn and even a bit rude. She mostly says what she wants to and fiercely hides what she doesn’t want to, even when pressured. She yielded only to her parents, which is tied up in love, respect, fear that they will no longer love her, possible aversion to change in some aspects of her life, and cultural expectations. For disabled children, it is often hard to go against your parents because the world teaches you that the world will never accept you or allow you to live in it. Your family is all you have.

Toph IS tiny, although that is due to genetics, environmental factors, and her age. However, her stature is used to prove the other qualities assigned to her when in reality her height has nothing to do with anything her family believes about her.

When the fighting starts, Toph creates a cloud of dust which effectively blinds her opponents. I thought it was a nice, ironic touch. The point is not just that her opponents now cannot see; Toph is already used to fighting under these conditions. She didn’t level the playing field. She is already better than them, already used to working without sight, and so the advantage is hers.

ABLEISM IN ACTION

Later, Toph confronts her parents:

Toph’s father: “You will be cared for and guarded 24/7.” Toph’s mother: “We are doing this for your own good, Toph.”

Unfortunately, this kind of infantilization is not uncommon. They saw her as she truly was and were still unable to let go of their ideas of their blind daughter. At this point, Toph is more trapped than ever despite opening up. The first time, it was surprising to see them not change their minds, given the happy endings we are used to in children’s shows. However, what happens is more relatable to blind kids with overprotective or controlling parents.

Of course, Toph makes the choice to leave them, showing more agency than most blind characters get, with or without controlling parents.

OVERALL

Overall: I loved this episode. It was a nice introduction to a character that both challenged expectations and dealt with obstacles relatable to blind fans. Toph’s struggles with her parents and the weight of stereotypes could have been cheap inspiration porn, but the way it was handled and the target audience of children rather than adults changes things immensely. This episode goes out of its way to challenge many stereotypes viewers may hold about blind people in ways that are fun and exciting. Toph’s personality is refreshing even over a decade later. While her bending as ‘sight’ may be disliked by some, it feels more like something with missed opportunities (the use of a cane or sighted guide), although I thought this episode did it well. Toph is not given special powers so that she can see—she adapts an ability for her own use.

Toph is a martial artist, encouraging children to try something similar if they are interested. She challenges her own parents, which may be very relatable to blind fans.

Unlike most children’s shows of the time (and even now), Toph does not feel like a vessel for able-bodied viewers to learn about blindness.

ACCESSIBILITY:

However, it is important to remember that at the time ATLA aired, there was no Netflix with audio descriptions. Descriptions were infrequent at the time and are still spotty on cable TV. The ATLA DVD did not have audio descriptions either, which is the case with all DVDs I have come across. Netflix also took an embarrassingly long time to add audio descriptions to a show with a blind character.

Consider that Toph was nearly inaccessible to blind children at the time — until 2020, well after other sighted children could enjoy it fully. Blind children could not watch a show about them with the same ease that a sighted child could. Think about that.

Is the show to blame for this? I don’t know. Usually the broadcasting service handles descriptions. I have yet to come across a DVD with descriptions. However, I wonder why it took this long. Did the staff consider a blind audience at all? Could they have pushed for descriptions to be added to the DVD?

And what about fans? Did fans consider that the character who challenged stereotypes for them might not be as accessible to blind people themselves? While they scrabbled about whether the characters were ableist, did they bother to consider Netflix’s lack of audio descriptions? Do they remember to add image descriptions to GIFs, pictures, or video clips in the years ATLA was popular online? Did any of this occur to anyone BUT the blind community?

Doesn’t seem like it.

TOPH AND THINGS I WOULD LIKE TO SEE MORE OF/LESS OF IN BLIND CHARACTERS

I made a post about things I would like to see more/less of in blind characters. You can read it here:

https://blindbeta.tumblr.com/post/637419979125489664/things-i-want-to-see-more-ofless-of-in-blind

Here’s how Toph compares to that!

More of: -Blind main character ✔️ -Blind character of color ✔️ -Active (sports/martial arts) and competitive ✔️ -Acknowledgment of difficulties faced in society ✔️

How They Avoided Things I Wanted Less Of: -Being portrayed as sad or broken because of blindness - Avoided - Toph owns her blindness by giving herself the same The Blind Bandit. The only time she is sad is when facing ableism from her parents.

-Being innocent, helpless, and unrealistically kind or selfless - Toph proves she is not helpless, even directly challenging it in the narrative. - Toph is also not unrealistically kind or selfless, not only insulting other characters- but refusing to help Aang when he needs it because it would change things between her and her parents. She also challenges her parents in the end, putting her desires before their feelings toward their perceptions of her. When she follows Aang, she doesn’t do so only to help him. She has her own want to travel and gain independence. - As for innocence, Toph IS 12, although she is far from naive. She is able to fool her own parents into thinking she is who they want her to be.

-Being portrayed as ungrateful or rude in general - Toph’s rudeness comes from a non-ableist place—herself. She is not rude due to anger about being blind nor rude due to entitlement. She doesn’t accept she doesn’t need and is not demonized for this, even when going against her own parents. Toph’s rudeness is in her personality, making it subversive in avoiding the idea blind people must accept all help and be grateful for it. The narrative does NOT expect Toph to go along with the ‘help’ of her parents or even Aang. She refuses this help until she is ready and willing to receive it.

-Going blind due to accidents or trauma - Toph was born blind

I WOULD HAVE WANTED TO SEE: -more adaptive technology/skills in addition to her bending -how she utilizes her other senses -another blind, minor character somewhere in the show (doesn’t apply to this episode, but still)

Toph is, in the end, a token blind character. It works better because she is a MAIN character, which is still not a common occurrence in modern media at all. Toph works because she does not have any stereotypical traits about her personality, which means the sighted audience does not have to rely on another character to broaden their perspective. However, it is still important to include more than one blind character in your stories. For ATLA, 1 or 2 minor blind characters may have helped, or maybe an additional secondary or even main character with low vision.

Toph has a well-rounded personality, which also means the “token” is not completely applicable to her. Toph is a great character. It would have been nice if she were not the only blind character. In fact, I cannot think of any show that has more than one blind character, as if it is a character quirk that cannot be done more than once.

RANDOM IMAGINES TIME

Now I’m imagining a Zuko whose eyesight was affected by the burn or a Zuko whose father decided he didn’t need that side of face anyway if he could not see out of it. Or an Azula who is blind and still better than Zuko -sticks out tongue-! Or perhaps Sokka or Ty Lee contrasting Toph’s personality and bringing to the table a struggle with a lack of depth perception while hunting or performing in the circus, respectively.

The point is, you don’t have to overload your story with blind characters unless you are setting it at a school or event for the blind. Instead, consider who is blind in your story and who else possibly could be. Consider why you only have one blind character and why.

That about wraps up all my thoughts on Toph. In short, I love her. There are things they could have done better or additions they could have made to improve the episode and Toph’s character as a whole, but she is still one of the most beloved and recognizable blind characters ever. I think that says something about the impression she left on people.

If only she would have been accessible to more blind children from the start.

I hope this review was helpful! If you need help writing blind characters I provide sensitivity reading in exchange for donations. My inbox is also open for questions.

Genre of the Week: Gangster Rap

Are you surprised that I am reviewing something that isn’t metal? Yeah, I am too! Gangster rap is my favorite sub-genre of rap because of the lyrics, the beats, and the overall attitude of the genre. In some ways, gangster rap reminds me of metal because of how intense the songs are and ferociously violent the lyrics of some of the songs. Sometimes when listening to gangster rap, you can imagine riffs from guitars instead of beats and this is when you can see the semblance between metal and gangster rap.

Gangster rap emphasizes the “gangsta,” “O.G.,” and “thug life” lifestyle. The genre evolved from hardcore rap and was pioneered in the mid 1980s by rappers such as Ice-t and later by rap group N.W.A. While this form of hip hop was primarily underground, it soon became the most commercially lucrative sub-genre of hip hop. Many gangster rap artists openly talk about their associations with various active street gangs as part of their image, with the Crips and Bloods being the most represented. There have been a lot of criticism against gangster rap claiming that it promotes gang violence, substance abuse, and other criminal activities. Others have come to the defense of gangster rap and have stated that this music tells a story of personal lives and brings awareness of what goes on during inner-city violence. In my opinion, both of these things, can be true. Gangster can, both, promote and lend awareness to violence.

Ice-T released “6 in the Mornin’” in 1986 and is often regarded as the first gangster rap song. Ice-T has been an MC since the early ‘80s but transitioned into gangster rap themes after he was influenced by Philadelphia rapper Schoolly D and his 1985 album, “Schoolly D.” Schoolly D not only influenced Ice-T, but also Eazy-E and N.W.A., as well as the Beastie Boys.

This first blockbuster gangster rap album was N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton,” which was released in 1988. This album established West Coast hip hop as a vital genre and established Los Angeles as a legitimate rival to hip hop’s long-time capital, New York City. In the early 1990s, former N.W.A. member Ice Cube would further influence gangster rap with his hardcore, socio-political solo albums.

Run DMC is often credited for popularizing hardcore and confrontational attitudes and lyrics in hip hop culture; but in my opinion, Run DMC is not even close to being brutal like gangster rap. They do talk about partying and objectifying women, but nowhere near the subject matter, language, and the tempo of gangster rap. In some of Public Enemy’s tracks you can hear some of the early gangster material that influenced the sound that became popular. Rappers like LL Cool J also influenced the overall lyrical format that gangster rap would later use. This type of lyrical content reminds me of hardcore music that you hear today in the metal scene.

In 1992, former N.W.A. member Dr. Dre released “The Chronic,” a massive seller which showed that explicit gangster rap could hold mass commercial appeal just like pop-oriented rappers. This album established the dominance of West Coast gangster rap and began to create the sub-genre of G-funk – a slow, drawled form of hip hop. Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic” is one of my favorite all-time records because of the beats, lyrical content, and the grooves of the songs. This type of rap reminds me of groovy death metal in a way, both are easy to dance to. Death Row Records rappers Snoop Dogg and 2pac helped spread the popularity of gangster rap and G-funk. Other popular and influential G-funk rappers, Warren G and Nate Dogg also helped popularize this sub-genre of music into mainstream media.

The feud between East Coast/West Coast gangster rap hit mainstream media in the late ‘90s. Rappers from New York City such as Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, The Notorious B.I.G., and Lil’ Kim, etc. pioneered a grittier sound known as East Coast hardcore hip hop in order to take back dominance from the West Coast. It has widely been speculated that the “East Coast/West Coast” battle between Death Row Records (West Coast) and Bad Boy Records (East Coast) resulted in the deaths of Death Row Records’ 2pac and Bad Boy Records’ The Notorious B.I.G. The feud is also credited for the downfall of the Gangster Rap genre. Add to this that, most of these artists are millionaires and can no longer relate to the streets that raised them. However, you can still find many people (including tons of metalheads) who still love Gansta'!

Here are some of my favorite gangster rap albums/songs!

Dr. Dre - The Chronic (album)

Favorite songs: F*** wit Dre Day & Nuthin' but a G thang

Snoop Dogg - Doggystyle (album)

Favorite songs: Gin N juice, Who Am I (What's My Name)?, Murder Was The Case

Friday (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Favorite song: Keep Their Heads Ringin' - Dr. Dre

Regulate (single) by Warren G and Nate Dogg

Gangsta's Paradise (single) by Coolio

Fantastic Voyage (single) by Coolio

Stay Metal,

THE SAW

After a five-year wait, Purity Ring are back with their latest album, Womb. The Canadian duo – comprising Megan James and Corin Roddick – first formed in 2010, releasing their debut full-length Shrines in 2012 to exceptional critical review. The second single from the album, ‘Fineshrine’ currently has more than 58 million streams on Spotify, was named one of the best songs of the decade so far by Pitchfork, and made it onto triple j’s Hottest 100 for 2012.

The group’s second album Another Eternity was released in 2015. Another Eternity featured single ‘Begin Again’, which came in at number 87 on the triple j Hottest 100 for 2015, and currently has over 25 million Spotify streams.

Vocalist Megan James tells Music Feeds she hopes the forthcoming album “feels like a place where people can rest and sit in and feel some kind of comforting escape for the brief time that it runs for.”

In this interview, we have a chat with James about the band’s creative process for the album, her personal favourite tracks, and how she’s holding up during quarantine.

Music Feeds: You guys have mentioned that Womb “chronicles a quest for comfort and the search for a resting place in a world where so much is beyond our control”, which seems pretty relevant to what we’re experiencing right now. What were you thinking about, specifically, when creating this album?

Megan James: Yeah, as it happens, it is applicable. I feel like, it’s odd how applicable it is right now. Mostly I think that’s just because we made the record from home and like, made a conscious decision to stay home a lot, whereas a lot of times throughout the previous records, we would travel somewhere together and like, go on some kind of writing trip. But yeah, I felt like, after touring Another Eternity – which was extensive, like, we toured for a really long time – we both needed a lot of space after that, to sort of like, come back to ourselves, and I think staying home to write this record sort of was born of that feeling. It’s like, we want to be home as much as we can ‘cause as soon as we’re done we have to go tour again.

So, yeah, I feel like that really played into it. Like, I am the kind of person who absorbs a lot from my environment, and therefore my home becomes a place where… how it feels and like, what’s in it and yeah, what it feels like it encompasses is really important to my creative process. A lot of that was like, a major part of just how this ended up being. It wasn’t like, that conscious what the record ended up being about, that’s like, more I guess how the personal poetry of the past five years of my life, it just so happens. But I think overall it was just staying home, and needing to for our creative process.

MF: This album was entirely recorded, produced, and mixed by yourselves. How was that process different from previous albums where maybe you had other people mixing or helping out in different ways.

MJ: Well, it’s not actually that different. Like, we usually… we have always done everything ourselves. I guess for our third record it was something we did more decisively, ‘cause it’s a lot easier to get things done faster, especially living in LA, it’s like… if you have a problem it’s really easy to call someone up and get it solved. I dunno, that’s never our go-to because we have, like through our creative process over the years we’ve realised that if it’s not coming from, exclusively from the two of us, it doesn’t feel like Purity Ring anymore. Also, it’s just sort of like a DIY mentality that we’ve always had. It’s like when we started making music, we did what we had to, like, it was all in Corin’s basement where we recorded, and then it was like in the living room in the Montreal apartment, and now it’s in the spare bedroom [laughs] at our house.

And it’s not because we could do anything differently now, necessarily. Like, we’re not at the stage where we can like, have the big studio and have like, all the gear and make a bigger deal out of it or whatever. It’s just like, what we’ve always done. But this time Corin did mix it himself. He mixed the Shrines record, and then we had someone else mix Another Eternity, and then he wanted to do it again this time, which was a big deal, it’s a lot of work. But yeah, it comes at the end. So, the writing process is all pretty much the same with how it has been.

MF: Do you have a personal favourite track from the album?

MJ: It actually changes. For a long time, it was ‘Rubyinsides’, I really like ‘Rubyinsides’. Corin’s favourite is ‘Sinew’, definitely. When we finished the record, I really liked ‘Vehemence’. Like, I wasn’t sure about it before and then I really liked it. It’s funny how it comes together. You don’t always know what it’ll look like at the end and it’s often unexpected. I mean, obviously we like all the songs, they made it to the record but, yeah, how my initial reaction to them traverses quite a lot over the process of making it.

MF: What’s your favourite lyric that you’ve ever written, across any of the albums?

MJ: Hm, that’s a really hard question. I don’t remember a lot of them, honestly. Like, I don’t really look back or listen.

MF: Or maybe from this album, if it’s easier?

MJ: Yeah, maybe from this album it would be… I think, there’s a bit at the… I think the end of ‘Femia’ is my favourite thing. That gets stuck in my head a lot and I feel like it has the elements of poetry that I am usually aiming for, in a very compact way. It just feels really satisfying.

MF: How are you planning on spending your time during this quarantine/isolation period of our lives?

MJ: Well, like I said, I spend a lot of time at home to begin with. Work from home is like… it’s funny though, ‘cause like, all of my creative process is already here and then, since the quarantine started, I’m having a harder time than ever actually being creative. I didn’t realise how much I’d have to wrap my head around what’s happening, even though it’s like, it feels like I’m alone but I know I’m not, but also… I dunno, it’s like, it’s developing into a thing that… it’s so big and so real that it is really hard to know what to do with it but I feel like we have to do something with it, otherwise, we won’t get anything done [laughs].

I don’t know, I have a lot of… I’ve been sort of going through phases, and initially, I was like, this is great, I’m gonna like, start a sourdough starter – which has been two weeks, it’s going great – I can make bread. I’m growing sprouts. I’m like, doing all these sort of, self-sustaining things so that I don’t have to go to the grocery store I like planted potatoes [laughs]. Working at all these things that will just like, maintain being able to stay inside longer.

But then it’s like… I’m fortunate enough to be okay, with where we’re at right now, but it feels like survival mode. I guess one thing I could say though is, I do really appreciate how everyone’s first instinct was sort of to like, help each other. In the first week of quarantine I got more phone calls from like, distant friends to like, have a Skype hang or whatever than I ever have before and it’s like oh, everyone’s really thinking about each other. It gave me a lot of hope for whatever the new normal is.

MF: Yeah. I think that’s very accurate though, about the reduced motivation to do things. I’ve definitely been feeling that as well, in a weird way.

MJ: Really?

MF: Yeah, like even with writing and stuff, I’m like, I’ve got to do it but… it’s hard. When the world feels like it’s almost falling apart, it’s hard to get motivated. I dunno, it’s weird.

MJ: Yeah, it’s like… It’s so heavy that you can’t hole up and pretend it’s not there. Because like, it’s affecting everyone anyway. It’s hard to define at this point.

MF: It is. I’m sure in the future there’ll be lots of stuff about it written.

MJ: Oh yeah. But also, I just hit this point where… it got heavier recently. Like, I started feeling more emotional than I was the first couple of weeks, so, I don’t know about you, but I’m like… it’s starting to hit harder.

MF: No, for sure. I think that’s definitely a thing.

MJ: Like, it’s beyond cabin fever, it’s like… whoa, what is happening? I feel like, crazy in a way I’ve never felt before, so I don’t know.

MF: Yeah, ‘cause the first week or two it’s new and it’s different, and then you get a bit further in and it’s like oh, this isn’t ending, this keeps going…

MJ: And it’s like, shifting still, because it doesn’t end… We’ll see though, I hope we’re all okay.

MF: So do I. Are you marathoning any Netflix shows or reading any books during this time that are particularly good?

MJ: The usual. I watched Tiger King, which was great. Also, Crip Camp was a beautiful movie, also on Netflix. That one was very moving for me. And then, I had like, a funny sort of coincidence, I guess. I watched this movie Safe the other night, which is from… I think it was made in ’87, which is right after the AIDS crisis in America, so it’s like, kind of pertaining to that, and it has Julianne Moore. Anyway, the next day, The New Yorker wrote an article about how that movie applies to what we’re going through right now, and it was like… the movie really affected me, and then the next day was this article, and I was like, oh, this is easier to think about, ‘cause it is the kind of movie where it’s like… I was affected but I wasn’t sure why, like, ‘whoa, what just happened to me? I have so many feelings!’. But yeah, that was a really good movie, and on point, weirdly. Kind of like a timeless message, I guess.

MF: Yeah, I find that’s kind of strange as well with like, a lot of media out there, whether it’s albums or movies or books, some of it just weirdly relates to what we’re going through right now, without even… you know, being created years before. Whether I’m just reading too far into it, I dunno.

MJ: No, but like, the first movie I watched when this all started was Contagion, obviously. But that was like, eerie how on the nose it was. So, yeah, there is a lot of entertainment that predicted this. It’s so weird. But also it’s time. Pandemics are… I think the main thing that affects society, and it’s every century or so it happens. We’re kind of like, due for one. Or that’s like… I have read that, I’m not saying that of my own accord.

Actually, the last book I read it was last year at some point. Reading books has been a thing that’s on the list that I procrastinate about. I read The Lost City of the Monkey God, which is like, it’s kind of like, about treasure hunters, I guess [laughs]. Anyway, that was interesting ‘cause it’s also about how they’re… like, they all go deep in the jungle, where people haven’t been for hundreds of years, and they come out with leish[manaiasis], and they all… the virus has been around since the beginning of time, but there’s still no cure and it still exists. I’m not making any sense, but the book’s related to what we’re going through now.

MF: Yeah, I think you’re right. I think it has been shown that every hundred years or so there seems to be something. Who knows why that is…

MJ: Yeah, it’s nerve-racking and we’re in it and there are no answers because there are not many people around who have been through this before.

–

Purity Ring’s new album ‘WOMB’ is out now.

The post Purity Ring’s New Album ‘Womb’ Is A Resting Place In A World Out Of Control appeared first on Music Feeds.

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CCTV captures Nipsey Hussle being shot dead in Los Angeles

Surveillance video has captured the terrifying moment a gunman fatally opened fire on rapper Nipsey Hussle in Los Angeles and sent multiple people fleeing for safety. 

The 33-year-old rapper was one of three men shot in broad daylight on Sunday outside Marathon Clothing, the store he founded to help rebuild his troubled South Los Angeles neighborhood.

Surveillance cameras from a nearby business captured a man in a dark shirt approaching Hussle and a group of men as they stood by a white car parked at the front of his store on Sunday afternoon. 

Seconds later, Hussle could be seen dropping to the ground while multiple men fled the scene as the gunfire rang out. The gunman could be seen firing from a distance before approaching and shooting multiple times at close range.  

Surveillance video captured a man in a red shirt (circled) approaching Nipsey Hussle and a group of men (right) outside his Marathon Clothing store in Los Angeles on Sunday just moments before the rapper was shot dead

The gunman appeared to kick Hussle before fleeing the same way he came. Eyewitness reported seeing a man fleeing in a vehicle after the shooting.

Sources told TMZ that the gunman had a ‘tense’ conversation with Hussle in the lead up to the shooting. The gunman supposedly left to retrieve a gun after feeling ‘disrespected’.  

Hussle, whose real name was Ermias Asghedom, was shot multiple times and was pronounced dead after being rushed to hospital. 

He suffered gunshot wounds to his head and torso, according to the L.A. County Medical Coroner. 

The two other men who were injured in the shooting remain in stable conditions. 

Investigators have not yet determined a motive or identified any suspects but they are reviewing the surveillance footage. They only said they were searching for a black male gunman. 

Hussle grew up in south Los Angeles and often talked about being in the Rollin 60s Neighborhood Crips gang in his teenage years. 

Hussle could be seen dropping to the ground (above) and multiple men fled the scene as the gunfire rang out. The rapper suffered fatal gunshot wounds to his head and chest, according to a coroner 

Multiple people could be seen running as gunshots rang out and Hussle dropped to the ground outside his clothing store

It is not clear if the gunman was among those caught on video running from the scene but eyewitness reported seeing a man fleeing in a vehicle after the shooting

Moments before the fatal shooting, Hussle had tweeted: ‘Having strong enemies is a blessing.’

A source close to the investigation told The Los Angeles Times they believe Hussle’s killer belonged to a gang. 

He was due to sit down with the LAPD in the coming weeks to discuss gang violence and how to prevent it.  

Some believe he was killed because he had been buying up property in south Los Angeles an effort to legitimize himself and the area. 

Last year, he opened a co-working space and STEM center aimed at bridging the gap between urban communities and Silicon Valley.  

Others believe his death is linked to a documentary he was working on about a herbalist who claimed to have cured AIDS. 

Just one day before he was killed, Hussle was pictured smiling and posing for photos at a March Madness game between Texas Tech and Gonzaga in Anaheim.

Nipsey Hussle was pictured on Saturday at a March Madness basketball game in Anaheim, California. The next day, he was shot dead outside his clothing store 

Hussle was seen socializing at the event with other spectators and smiling for cameras

The rapper, who was also on a mission to eradicate gang violence from the neighborhood where he grew up, was shot multiple times on Sunday. Police are yet to find his killer

Prior to being shot, Hussle also posed for a photo with a fan’s child just outside his store. 

Since his teen gang years, Hussle had become an entrepreneur and a community organizer in the area.

He was involved in the Destination Crenshaw arts project and opened a co-working space called Vector 90 in Crenshaw so young people could take classes in science, technology and math.

In recent years, he had been buying up real estate in the neighborhood to try become a legitimate real estate mogul. 

He and his business partner had plans to turn the plot where his clothing store was into a residential building and last year, he opened a co-working space and STEM center. 

He was eager to increase awareness and interest in the technology and science industries in south L.A., with some residents crediting him for ‘teaching us how to invest’.  

‘In our culture, there’s a narrative that says, ‘Follow the athletes, follow the entertainers.’ And that’s cool but there should be something that says, ‘Follow Elon Musk, follow [Mark] Zuckerberg.’ 

Rapper Nipsey Hussle was shot dead outside his clothing store in Los Angeles on Sunday. He is pictured above posing with a fan’s child just moments before the fatal shooting 

LA Police Commissioner Steve Soboroff said he was due to meet with Nipsey Hussle and chief of police Michel Moore today to discuss gang violence 

Blood stained bandages were spotted on the ground outside the rapper’s Marathon Store on Sunday afternoon following the fatal shooting 

The 33-year-old Grammy nominee, who was born Ermias Asghedom, was among three people shot outside the Marathon Store on Sunday afternoon 

‘I think that with me being influential as an artist and young and coming from the inner city, it makes sense for me to be one of the people that’s waving that flag,’ he told The Los Angeles Times last year.

Nipsey is survived by his two-year-old son Kross with Poinsettias for Christmas star Lauren London and his daughter Emani from a prior relationship.  

Michel Moore, LAPD chief of police who was due to meet Nipsey today, said there had been 10 murders over the last week.

He wrote on Twitter last night: ‘Tonight’s homicide in South LA represents the latest loss in a troubling surge in violence.

‘Since last Sunday 26 victims have been shot & 10 homicides—that’s 36 families left picking up the pieces. We will work aggressively with our community to quell this senseless loss of life.’ 

The rapper and his girlfriend of five years, Lauren London, had just quizzed each other about favorite colors and celebrity crushes in a GQ interview on Thursday. 

‘You. I don’t have a celebrity crush. I’m with my celebrity crush,’ the 34-year-old actress gushed.  

Tragic: Hussle is survived by his two-year-old son Kross (L) with Poinsettias for Christmas actress Lauren London as well as a daughter Emani (R) from a prior relationship

Lauren London, Diddy and Nipsey Hussle attend 2019 Roc Nation THE BRUNCH on February 9, 2019 in LA

Long part of the underground rap circuit, Hussle struggled to find fame but began selling his own mixtapes, which hip-hop royalty Jay-Z once bought 100 of for $100 each.

He was Grammy-nominated for Best Rap Album for ‘Victory Lap,’ his first formal album that finally dropped in February 2018 after six years of teasing, but lost out to rap’s woman of the moment Cardi B.

The heavily-tattooed hip-hop star was next scheduled to perform at the Kings of the West concert on September 14 at the SAP Center in San Jose. 

Tributes have been flowing in following news of his death from big names in the music industry, including Rihanna, Drake, and Snoop Dogg. 

Mayor Eric Garcetti also tweeted Sunday: ‘Our hearts are with the loved ones of Nipsey Hussle.’ 

‘This doesn’t make any sense! My spirit is shaken by this!,’ Rihanna wrote while posting photos of Hussle with his daughter and another with his fiance. ‘Dear God may His spirit Rest In Peace and May You grant divine comfort to all his loved ones! I’m so sorry this happened to you @nipseyhussle.’ 

Snoop Dogg posted a video of himself and Hussle together on Instagram, and posted a second clip sending prayers to the rapper’s family.

‘Prayers out to the whole family man. This (stuff has) got to stop man,’ he said in the second video. 

‘It’s f***ed up, man’: Nipsey’s tour mate Snoop Dogg (R) shared several social media tributes, and admitted he was ‘so sad right now’

‘I’m so sorry this happened to you’: Upon hearing the sad news, nine-time Grammy winner Rihanna tweeted a tribute to Hussle

‘Rest amongst the stars’: 12-time Grammy winner Pharrell Williams tweeted about how Nipsey was about being ‘positive and for your community in every chance you had to speak’

‘U have always been a good dude…I’m so sorry’: Grieving Grammy nominee Kevin Hart shared a snap of himself standing beside the late 6ft3in rapper

Los Angeles Lakers power forward LeBron James was also aghast tweeting: ‘@NipseyHussle! So so SAD man!! DAMN man this hurt’

Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry publicly prayed: ‘God please cover and restore @NipseyHussle right now!’ 

The post CCTV captures Nipsey Hussle being shot dead in Los Angeles appeared first on Gyrlversion.

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Being a physically disabled Dimension 20 fan breaks my heart sometimes

I’ve been thinking about this since last Wednesday’s episode when we finally got a real scene with Lydia, one of the few physically disabled characters in the entire canon of the show. It was nice, but it was really just a lore dump. An excuse for exposition. A moment for Kristen to look good by expending sympathy/pity. (I’m a little frustrated about how that interaction went down. Extending the help action was nice but patronizingly touching the neck of a full-ass adult without consent was not. It was weird and not something she would have done to a nondisabled character).

I have watched almost all of D20 (still missing a couple of seasons) and as far as I know here’s where our list of canon physically disabled characters stand: Lydia Barkrock, Jan de la Vega (who feels pretty problematic to me, maybe more on that in a later post), one of the Dwarven statues in the temple in The Seven (who is not given the dignity of being brought to life like Asha), and Pete’s coworker in TUC2 who is in exactly one episode and is so unimportant I have forgotten his name. I guess you could make an argument that Gunny is disabled, but I don't feel that Lou or Brennan really talk about him or play him through that lens. So in terms of canon physically disabled PCs-- that leaves us with 0.

We do a bit better with neurodivergent characters and characters with mental health problems; Ayda (my beloved) is very well developed and Adaine is a PC. There have been some openly neurodivergent players, like Omar and Surena, whose characters also read ND to me. But that isn’t labeled or discussed in canon, so it's hard for me to know where to class that. I am going to focus the rest of this post on physical disabilities, since that is my area of lived experience. If another fan wants to write about their perspective of neurodivergence rep in the show, I would love to hear that, and will happily amplify.

There has never been a character with a sensory disability or a limb difference or a chronic illness (not a fantasy one, a real one) on Dimension 20. The only NPCs we have are nondescript, similar wheelchair users. And there has never been a physically disabled player at the table. On the flagship show of Dropout, a company founded on diversity and inclusion. It feels extremely pointed to me.

In fact as far as I can tell there has only been one (1) physically disabled performer on any of Dropout’s shows. (Shout out to Brett, you were great on Dirty Laundry.) Obviously I haven’t seen every episode of everything they have produced. If I have missed someone, please do let me know in the comments/reblogs. But it’s a problem. And Sam Reich even agreed with this criticism when I asked him directly about.

I do really hope they’re working on it, as Sam says. But why has it taken so long?

Dimension 20 has had trans and nonbinary and queer players. It has had players of many different races. I’m not saying that the diversity here is perfect; there should always be more POC in the dome, more queer people. We should keep pushing for that. (And we should also push for performers at the intersections of these identities!) But we’ve seen the ways this diversity has expanded and improved the different seasons, because diverse players create sensitively drawn, diverse player characters. They add details to their PC’s experiences that make them feel rich and alive. I’m thinking about each of Ally’s PC’s incredible capital G gender and Aabria “all my characters (even the stoats) are Black” and how excellent they all are. D20 would not be the show it is without this input.

And yet. And yet.

There are 1,000 interesting and complicated themes to explore around disability. Dealing with access. Dealing with ableism. Dealing with compassion and community care. Dealing with none of it and just being a cool fantasy or sci fi character that happens to be disabled. We don’t get any of it.

I watch my favorite show and I see myself in the ace rep and the female characters. But I don’t see all of me. I see a silent but ever present message: you aren’t quite welcome here.

I have this fantasy that I play in my brain sometimes that someday I’ll get to talk to Brennan in person, like maybe if I buy a VIP ticket and risk Covid to go to a live show or we run into each other on the street or something. I am able to look him in the eye and articulate why he NEEDS to include a physically disabled player in an upcoming season. I reference the ways he’s talked about inclusion and writing diversely on Adventuring Party. Maybe I hand him a handwritten letter, or hell, a printout of this post. And because he really cares about diversity and his shows and his fans he would listen to me, and cast a physically disabled performer in the next season.

But I think that might be giving that nondisabled man (whose work I adore, who I respect so much) too much credit. Because he’s had Jennifer Kretchmer, a physically disabled actual play performer, on adventuring academy to talk about access in gaming. He’s hired disability consultants. He knows about physically disabled people, enough to give us shoutouts as inconsequential npcs. And he still hasn’t thought to include us at the table. In over 20 seasons. None of that other stuff matters if we aren't given a seat at the story telling table, and the agency to craft our own narratives equal to other participants in the game.

When Lydia was telling her story in the last episode, I kept wishing for a prequel, where she is more than a plot delivery device and a kind but unimportant parent. I want to know about her adventures with her adventuring party. I want to see a talented, wheelchair-using actor play out the scene when she decides to put the gem in her chest. I want to hear about what happened after. I want to know how she survived. I want it so badly it hurts.

I am in the process of trying to find new indie actual plays that feature more disabled talent. I am learning how to GM myself so I can tell these kinds of stories. But it’s not the same as being a fan of something. Sometimes I don’t want to have to make my own representation. Sometimes I just want to turn on my favorite tv show, the one that I have cosplayed from and written metas about and loved whole heartedly, and see myself included.

If you’re another disabled or neurodivergent fan I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. If you’re not, I’d love for you to reblog this. I would love for the absence of physical disability in this show to be a topic of fandom conversation, at the very least.

Album of the Year #14: Vince Staples - Big Fish Theory

Album of the Year #14: Vince Staples - Big Fish Theory

Artist: Vince Staples

Album: Big Fish Theory

Label: ARTium / Blacksmith / Def Jam

Release Date: 6/23/17

Listen:

Apple Music

Spotify

Tidal

Google Play Music

Background:

For the sake of this review and the context in which Big Fish Theory was birthed, this portion of the review is going to be dedicated to the background of this album’s formation rather than Vince Staples, who needs no introduction at this point. A good amount of my information stems from this incredible interview with Zach Sekoff, which gives the most background on the creation of the album of all the pieces I’ve read that I recommend everyone read.

Vince’s foray into experimenting with his sound and pushing himself as an artist began with last year’s Prima Donna EP. A project inspired by a Amy Winehouse documentary Amy, the brooding, cold 22 minute extended play shocked fans with its electronic, experimental production and long spoken word segments. The extended play could be played forward and backward, with the gunshot at the end of Let It Shine signaling either the end or beginning of the story told within. Many fans responded with confusion and some with negativity, unable to reconcile with this change in direction and sound. The approach to suicidal thoughts, isolation, and the throes of fame fully embraced Vince’s pre-existing nihilism, ramping it up more than ever before. It works perfectly as a precursor to Big Fish Theory, which took these elements and combined them with an even farther left change in production choices and its approach to the themes that make up Prima Donna.

The most critical element in the formation of Big Fish Theory was Los Angeles producer Zach Sekoff. Having known Vince previously, around the time Prima Donna was released Vince asked Sekoff to send him beats, in which Sekoff hilariously sent him what he described as “Vince Staples type beats” before spending some studio time with Vince and realizing that that sound was of the past and Vince had a different direction in mind. Sekoff notes Vince listening to a lot of Detroit house, techno, and various other electronic music, which combined with Sekoff’s love for UK garage and electronics, makes up the lifeblood of Big Fish Theory. He goes in depth about Vince’s hands on approach to the project, and how he pushed his own boundaries by working with producers like GTA and James Blake.

Something important to remember when analyzing the creation of this album and Vince’s approach to the sound and direction is to keep Vince the media & interview personality and Vince the artist and musician separate. Vince the personality oversimplifies concepts like creating an album, how he approaches songwriting and structure, opting instead for sarcastic humor and wit. To people unfamiliar with Vince, this can come off as lack of interest in his output or that he simply raps over beats and throws them together into projects. Rather, Sekoff’s interview is just one of numerous accounts of how truly hands on, focused, and involved Vince is with every element of his music. Vince the artist has a deep, true love for music and pushing his own boundaries, listening to experimental and off kilter works that influence not only his choice of sonics but his own approach and direction. Vince’s music should never be taken as anything less than completely real, artistic works.

Review:

This thing called love real hard for me

This thing called love is a God to me

I remember being starstruck seeing Vince Staples perform in front of me back in March of this year for The Life Aquatic Tour. Before his set and longtime friend and collaborator Kilo Kish’s opening set, the screen setup was a muted playback of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou in reverse. His stage presence was unlike anything I had seen before; his cold, dead eyes staring at the audience, stalking around the stage like a predator observing his prey. Fish and aquatic images littered the huge, encompassing back screen. At one point, there were lights that spread out over the crowd that looked like moving water above us. Through the visuals, Vince continued to prowl around the stage, and with the overt aquatic imagery combined with my understanding of Bagbak and the vocal interlude, I started to piece it all together over the next few months leading up to release. The cover art for the single contained what looked like a grainy underwater shot, and taking that into consideration the interlude (which reminds me heavily of the narration of the Jaguar Shark film within the film) was the biggest indicator of what was to come:

They found it

Depth close to 3230 feet

A deep dive, but within acceptable range

3230 Poppy St. being Vince’s address, it made sense. Once the album details started to come out, it finally all connected and made sense. Thus began the Big Fish Theory era.

Big Fish Theory works as two halves to a whole; the first six tracks acting as what I’ll deem the “love” side and the last six acting as the “fame” side, although they are very much one and the same; two sides to the same coin. The album opens up with Crabs In a Bucket, a glitchy, gorgeous electronic piece that combined Zach Sekoff’s electronic influence and Justin Vernon (Bon Iver’s) synthy, pristine touch to craft one of Vince’s best openers yet. The metaphor “crabs in a bucket” is something Vince has touched before on Senorita. It refers to the mentality of crabs in an actual bucket, who when trying to climb up the side are clawed down by the other crabs at the bottom, which reflects on people in a similar situation only looking out for themselves and bringing down others who begin to rise out of it or become above them. This has a double meaning, as “crab” is an insult used generally against Crips by Bloods, which Vince touched on in Senorita. Something to note especially with the production is how watery and submersed it sounds, something that runs throughout every track on the project. Everything from the percussion and bass to the vocals themselves sound submerged in water, which brings a fantastic, unique sound to the sonics throughout.

Much of the first side explores Vince’s relationship with love more indepth than he has before on past works. Love Can Be, one of his most stunning and beautiful songs yet, approaches love with a nuance Vince has experienced in his rise to fame. He touches upon how money has never done him wrong where women have, which Kilo Kish’s wonderful feature displays perfectly, coming across as uninterested in her partner and tired of his shit. These women Vince has been involved with want this famous lifestyle, and nothing truly lasts or has real meaning in Vince’s love life. One of my favorite parts of this entire track is Ray J’s fucking fantastic vocals, which when I first heard made me go crazy because it reminded me of Archangel off Burial’s Untrue, an album and song I love that famously sampled Ray J’s One Wish and repurposed his vocals into this heartbreaking, cold plead against a sparse, gorgeous electronic background. It’s an absolutely breathtaking perfect storm, combining Vince’s continued love and admiration for Ray J, and which if anyone hasn’t seen Vince’s incredible theory on Ray J’s influence it’s absolutely essential viewing, and the connection between the two sonics of each track.

One of the most critical tracks on the entire project is Alyssa Interlude, which samples an Amy Winehouse interview that was featured on Amy. The track acts perfectly as a thesis for the entire project:

Sometimes you have to get all the... all the crap out the way before you hit the good stuff and you're like "OK, I'm getting good stuff now"

But, um, uh, I had a b- I mean, the stuff I write about, what do I really write about?

I've got my weed songs and all my songs about my boy- uh, my ex-boyfriend, George

Songs about relationships that are kinda doomed from the start

You know, songs about when I fell in love and it went wrong

And I was so in love at the time, you know, I was like...

And I was with someone that I was in love with, you know what I mean? We were in love

You know what I mean? We were together, so-

When it- and that's like a real drug, isn't it? So when it- when it didn't come together, I was just like...

You know? It really hurt

But I needed enough distance from it

So that it wasn't like raw emotion anymore

But not enough distance that I'd forget

I'm quite a self-destructive person, so I guess

I guess I give myself material...

This acts so perfectly in the context of the album: it touches on love lost, and how being a self-destructive individual creates this material for her music, and how it reflects in her approach to songwriting. This reflects on Vince as well, in all these love songs he details these experiences with love he’s had that have come from lost love and failed relationships, which craft some of his best work yet, but are catalyzed by this loss. This is perfectly juxtaposed with Vince’s verse after, his most vulnerable and raw he’s ever been alongside Summertime; this time, there is no warbled autotune on his voice, just him talking about how he misses his old love, his fear of people leaving and how he should have protected her. He is bare and naked alongside a sample of The Temptation’s I Wish It Would Rain, which plays after he says the title. It works so well to further the power behind the verse, and sets up the two most important rain references that occur later in the album to have even more meaning.

The other tracks on the first half only further the themes explored. 745 is a fantastic, deep bass centered track in which Vince recounts a troubled relationship and their night out. “All my life pretty women done told me lies”, a saying which touches on Vince’s experience with love, even before the fame. This is paired with a deep bass that sounds completely submerged, and the synths littering the track remind me of the Donkey Kong Country Aquatic Ambience music, and only further that cold, isolated submerged feeling Vince portrays. Big Fish, on the other hand, is the only truly weak part of the entire album. It is clearly the “label radio single” of the album, and is a ‘pretty good’ song on a project full of fantastic songs. As I’ve understood the sounds Vince and Sekoff explored throughout more and more, this song makes much more sense in the context of that realm of sonics but it is still the clearly the radio single of the album. The rest of the project is incredible enough to negative the weak properties of this song, and I think it fits fine as I’ve spent a lot of time listening to the project. That is the only true criticism or weakness on the entire project.

Once Ramona Park Is Yankee Stadium hits, the project begins to shift into the second half. Sounds of a heavy thunderstorm envelope the track as Vince sings/raps about New York in a monotone, detached voice. The seagulls and tone of the track reflect the Ramona Park Legend Pt. ½ tracks from Summertime ‘06, with a different take this time. The overtness of the title reflects how Vince wears a Yankee hat, a symbol of his Crip status and upbringing, and how Ramona Park is home to this Crip presence. He wonders if New York, this city so far from his home that he wears on his body, would even know about him if he died. It’s heartbreaking the way he parallels this symbol for his gang status and this city. His home in Ramona Park seems so insignificant to this huge, foreign city to him. The thunderstorm is in full force and rain has finally fallen, Vince’s tears are hidden in the rain and the shift from love to fame in the second half begins.

Yeah Right is a startling shift from the dreary, depressed atmosphere of the track before and Vince’s braggadocio is in full force. His rapping is accompanied by one of the most disgusting, harshest basslines I’ve ever heard in my entire life. It sounds so gritty and warbled, with background synths seesawing behind his rapping, talking about the pretty women from before but from a different aspect of Vince’s personality this time. Everything sounds chaotic and warbled before KUČKA’s voice breaks through with a stunning, beautiful bridge that leads into the arrival of Kendrick Lamar, top dog of the new school who delivers one of my favorite features from him period. It’s as if Vince is at the height of his bragging here, no credits on any of the song titles, and Kendrick shows up unannounced as if to say here’s the biggest, most critically and commercially acclaimed and lauded rapper out right now, a feature on my song. It’s structured amazingly, and I’m left wondering how Vince was able to convince his label to not have Kendrick credited on the title, as it would obviously receive much more attention. Regardless, Kendrick delivers an amazing verse, featuring a wonderful line in which at exactly 2:11 in the track, he states “211 got bread on me!” and the disgusting bass comes back in full force, 211 being the police code for robbery.

The next track, Homage, acts as a way of confronting the crabs in his bucket while he pays homage to different flows and a direct sample of a Rick Ross hook. He talks about how people can’t hold him back anymore, Prima Donna was amazing and he deserves all the praise for it (which I agree with wholeheartedly), and he’s at the top of his game. This works as a double meaning in my eyes, as people can’t hold him back from success anymore and people cannot hold him back from expanding his sound and artistry beyond the ‘gangster rap’ label of the past. He is more than that, and this song acts as a big fuck you to everyone who wants him to stay in that sound. I love how he uses the “New Level” flow and the sampled Ross hook almost to say, this is the culture I’m in and I’m doing my own thing. This works in conjunction with SAMO, one of my favorite instrumentals on the album, in which Vince references people expecting him to keep doing the same sound over and over again. The production is heavy, with the bass reverberating alongside harsh synths stabs that sounds like a shark swimming through dark, murky waters. It’s an amazing piece that truly cements that feeling of Vince wanting to break through the confines set on him as an artist, and with the insane production you’d be hard pressed to disagree with him.

Party People is the climax of the project and easily the most critical to the themes and concepts of the album, even above Alyssa Interlude. One of my favorite parts of the entire project is the opening to this song, as the kick drum sounds like someone tapping on a fish tank. The cover with the zoomed in picture on the face of the goldfish makes it look almost startled and frightened, as if someone just tapped on the glass and disturbed their tank. I envision those kicks to be that tapping, because coming off the braggadocio and ‘fuck you’ attitude of the past few tracks, the opening lines are the most raw of the entire project and set the tone for the rest of the song:

I been fucked since my early days

I been stuck in my worldly ways

Propaganda, press pan the camera

Please don't look at me in my face

Everybody might see my pain

Off the rail, might off myself

This is a stark contrast from the previous few tracks, as throughout the rest of the verse he talks more about his suicidal thoughts and how its “false bravado masked by wealth”. Someone has finally disturbed his place in the tank, and his fear and anxiety has come to the surface. The pre-hook reflects this as well:

Move your body if you came here to party

If not then pardon me

How I'm supposed to have a good time

When death and destruction's all I see?

Out of sight, I'm out of my mind

The sound of sunshine is callin' me

Good vibrations is all I need

All I need, all I need

The way this is delivered works perfectly with the chorus, in which he repeats lines about how he wants to see the party people dancing, and it sounds like someone pleading. He needs that energy because he doesn’t want to face his anxieties and insecurities. The second verse comes in, with lines that reference Vince referring to love as a “God” to him back in 745:

I met God once at a rendezvous and felt star-struck

"Vince, the car's out front"

Got things to do, got to make my moves

And the sound of a car screeching outside is heard. As soon as Vince has finally fallen in love he is immediately taken back to his life of fame, and even if he wants something more out of his love life, he doesn’t have the time because of the fame. It’s a truly fantastic track that works perfectly to explore all the themes present on the project, and is a good segue into the aggressive and political nature of BagBak.

BagBak explores Vince’s politics and his standing as a black man in the current political landscape over the most uptempo and aggressive track yet. He talks about how there should be more black representation in politics and until he’s fully accepted as a black man and black people are fully equal in all ways Vince is going to go harder than ever before. It works perfectly as an end to the braggadocios side of the album, with Vince declaring that he and his people are finally on now, and everyone can suck his dick because they’re finally making it and fighting back. It works perfectly in conjunction with Rain Come Down, which returns to the sound of the first half of the album. On his first verse which is repeated twice for effect, Vince discusses his home of Long Beach and how cops don’t come around where he’s from, and he made it from where he’s from and people shouldn’t try to do the same because they’re not on his level. In the third verse, he touches on not wanting a relationship full of love, just fine women which reflects the rain finally coming down when he states that

Make it rain, in the club

Don't you dream of how it feel to be in love?

The rain is now literally coming down in the form of dollars in the strip club, and Vince reflects asking if the woman dreams of the feeling of love. This disconnect is wonderfully established and it’s a great way to wrap everything up, and all this is done with a beautiful thumping beat and an amazing Ty Dolla $ign hook.

Vince’s uncompromising commitment to pushing himself as an artist and making better, more genre bending and blurring music is uncontested. The result is a fantastic project that builds upon concepts and themes previously explored in a wonderful package that challenges both Vince and his listener to push their boundaries of what they are used to. As a longtime fan, I was not fully on board at first with the change in sound but over months of analyzing and listening and researching I feel as though I am completely confident in saying this is his best work and an absolutely amazing project. Big Fish Theory is a phenomenal, daring masterstroke by one of hiphop’s most crucial trailblazers.

Discussion Questions:

1) How long have you been following Vince Staples? How do you think that’s influenced how you feel about his changes in sound?

2) What are your favorite lyrics from the project?

3) Has this project made you want to check out the genres that influenced the sound of the production? If so, how did you like it?

4) How do you feel about Prima Donna? Has this project made you go back and revisit it and feel differently?

5) Where would you like to see Vince go from here? Any genres you’d like to see him explore?

BONUS QUESTION FOR MY REAL ONES

1) For those like me who have been following Vince since the Shyne Coldchain & Winter in Prague days, what’s been your favorite era in his career so far?

Artist: Vince StaplesAlbum: Big Fish TheoryLabel: ARTium / Blacksmith / Def JamRelease Date: 6/23/17Listen:Apple MusicSpotifyTidalGoogle Play MusicBackground:For the sake of this review and the context in which Big Fish Theory was birthed, this portion of the review is going to be dedicated to the background of this album’s formation rather than Vince Staples, who needs no introduction at this point. A good amount of my information stems from this incredible interview with Zach Sekoff, which gives the most background on the creation of the album of all the pieces I’ve read that I recommend everyone read.Vince’s foray into experimenting with his sound and pushing himself as an artist began with last year’s Prima Donna EP. A project inspired by a Amy Winehouse documentary Amy, the brooding, cold 22 minute extended play shocked fans with its electronic, experimental production and long spoken word segments. The extended play could be played forward and backward, with the gunshot at the end of Let It Shine signaling either the end or beginning of the story told within. Many fans responded with confusion and some with negativity, unable to reconcile with this change in direction and sound. The approach to suicidal thoughts, isolation, and the throes of fame fully embraced Vince’s pre-existing nihilism, ramping it up more than ever before. It works perfectly as a precursor to Big Fish Theory, which took these elements and combined them with an even farther left change in production choices and its approach to the themes that make up Prima Donna.The most critical element in the formation of Big Fish Theory was Los Angeles producer Zach Sekoff. Having known Vince previously, around the time Prima Donna was released Vince asked Sekoff to send him beats, in which Sekoff hilariously sent him what he described as “Vince Staples type beats” before spending some studio time with Vince and realizing that that sound was of the past and Vince had a different direction in mind. Sekoff notes Vince listening to a lot of Detroit house, techno, and various other electronic music, which combined with Sekoff’s love for UK garage and electronics, makes up the lifeblood of Big Fish Theory. He goes in depth about Vince’s hands on approach to the project, and how he pushed his own boundaries by working with producers like GTA and James Blake.Something important to remember when analyzing the creation of this album and Vince’s approach to the sound and direction is to keep Vince the media & interview personality and Vince the artist and musician separate. Vince the personality oversimplifies concepts like creating an album, how he approaches songwriting and structure, opting instead for sarcastic humor and wit. To people unfamiliar with Vince, this can come off as lack of interest in his output or that he simply raps over beats and throws them together into projects. Rather, Sekoff’s interview is just one of numerous accounts of how truly hands on, focused, and involved Vince is with every element of his music. Vince the artist has a deep, true love for music and pushing his own boundaries, listening to experimental and off kilter works that influence not only his choice of sonics but his own approach and direction. Vince’s music should never be taken as anything less than completely real, artistic works.Review:This thing called love real hard for meThis thing called love is a God to meI remember being starstruck seeing Vince Staples perform in front of me back in March of this year for The Life Aquatic Tour. Before his set and longtime friend and collaborator Kilo Kish’s opening set, the screen setup was a muted playback of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou in reverse. His stage presence was unlike anything I had seen before; his cold, dead eyes staring at the audience, stalking around the stage like a predator observing his prey. Fish and aquatic images littered the huge, encompassing back screen. At one point, there were lights that spread out over the crowd that looked like moving water above us. Through the visuals, Vince continued to prowl around the stage, and with the overt aquatic imagery combined with my understanding of Bagbak and the vocal interlude, I started to piece it all together over the next few months leading up to release. The cover art for the single contained what looked like a grainy underwater shot, and taking that into consideration the interlude (which reminds me heavily of the narration of the Jaguar Shark film within the film) was the biggest indicator of what was to come:They found itDepth close to 3230 feetA deep dive, but within acceptable range3230 Poppy St. being Vince’s address, it made sense. Once the album details started to come out, it finally all connected and made sense. Thus began the Big Fish Theory era.Big Fish Theory works as two halves to a whole; the first six tracks acting as what I’ll deem the “love” side and the last six acting as the “fame” side, although they are very much one and the same; two sides to the same coin. The album opens up with Crabs In a Bucket, a glitchy, gorgeous electronic piece that combined Zach Sekoff’s electronic influence and Justin Vernon (Bon Iver’s) synthy, pristine touch to craft one of Vince’s best openers yet. The metaphor “crabs in a bucket” is something Vince has touched before on Senorita. It refers to the mentality of crabs in an actual bucket, who when trying to climb up the side are clawed down by the other crabs at the bottom, which reflects on people in a similar situation only looking out for themselves and bringing down others who begin to rise out of it or become above them. This has a double meaning, as “crab” is an insult used generally against Crips by Bloods, which Vince touched on in Senorita. Something to note especially with the production is how watery and submersed it sounds, something that runs throughout every track on the project. Everything from the percussion and bass to the vocals themselves sound submerged in water, which brings a fantastic, unique sound to the sonics throughout.Much of the first side explores Vince’s relationship with love more indepth than he has before on past works. Love Can Be, one of his most stunning and beautiful songs yet, approaches love with a nuance Vince has experienced in his rise to fame. He touches upon how money has never done him wrong where women have, which Kilo Kish’s wonderful feature displays perfectly, coming across as uninterested in her partner and tired of his shit. These women Vince has been involved with want this famous lifestyle, and nothing truly lasts or has real meaning in Vince’s love life. One of my favorite parts of this entire track is Ray J’s fucking fantastic vocals, which when I first heard made me go crazy because it reminded me of Archangel off Burial’s Untrue, an album and song I love that famously sampled Ray J’s One Wish and repurposed his vocals into this heartbreaking, cold plead against a sparse, gorgeous electronic background. It’s an absolutely breathtaking perfect storm, combining Vince’s continued love and admiration for Ray J, and which if anyone hasn’t seen Vince’s incredible theory on Ray J’s influence it’s absolutely essential viewing, and the connection between the two sonics of each track.One of the most critical tracks on the entire project is Alyssa Interlude, which samples an Amy Winehouse interview that was featured on Amy. The track acts perfectly as a thesis for the entire project:Sometimes you have to get all the... all the crap out the way before you hit the good stuff and you're like "OK, I'm getting good stuff now"But, um, uh, I had a b- I mean, the stuff I write about, what do I really write about?I've got my weed songs and all my songs about my boy- uh, my ex-boyfriend, GeorgeSongs about relationships that are kinda doomed from the startYou know, songs about when I fell in love and it went wrongAnd I was so in love at the time, you know, I was like...And I was with someone that I was in love with, you know what I mean? We were in loveYou know what I mean? We were together, so-When it- and that's like a real drug, isn't it? So when it- when it didn't come together, I was just like...You know? It really hurtBut I needed enough distance from itSo that it wasn't like raw emotion anymoreBut not enough distance that I'd forgetI'm quite a self-destructive person, so I guessI guess I give myself material...This acts so perfectly in the context of the album: it touches on love lost, and how being a self-destructive individual creates this material for her music, and how it reflects in her approach to songwriting. This reflects on Vince as well, in all these love songs he details these experiences with love he’s had that have come from lost love and failed relationships, which craft some of his best work yet, but are catalyzed by this loss. This is perfectly juxtaposed with Vince’s verse after, his most vulnerable and raw he’s ever been alongside Summertime; this time, there is no warbled autotune on his voice, just him talking about how he misses his old love, his fear of people leaving and how he should have protected her. He is bare and naked alongside a sample of The Temptation’s I Wish It Would Rain, which plays after he says the title. It works so well to further the power behind the verse, and sets up the two most important rain references that occur later in the album to have even more meaning.The other tracks on the first half only further the themes explored. 745 is a fantastic, deep bass centered track in which Vince recounts a troubled relationship and their night out. “All my life pretty women done told me lies”, a saying which touches on Vince’s experience with love, even before the fame. This is paired with a deep bass that sounds completely submerged, and the synths littering the track remind me of the Donkey Kong Country Aquatic Ambience music, and only further that cold, isolated submerged feeling Vince portrays. Big Fish, on the other hand, is the only truly weak part of the entire album. It is clearly the “label radio single” of the album, and is a ‘pretty good’ song on a project full of fantastic songs. As I’ve understood the sounds Vince and Sekoff explored throughout more and more, this song makes much more sense in the context of that realm of sonics but it is still the clearly the radio single of the album. The rest of the project is incredible enough to negative the weak properties of this song, and I think it fits fine as I’ve spent a lot of time listening to the project. That is the only true criticism or weakness on the entire project.Once Ramona Park Is Yankee Stadium hits, the project begins to shift into the second half. Sounds of a heavy thunderstorm envelope the track as Vince sings/raps about New York in a monotone, detached voice. The seagulls and tone of the track reflect the Ramona Park Legend Pt. ½ tracks from Summertime ‘06, with a different take this time. The overtness of the title reflects how Vince wears a Yankee hat, a symbol of his Crip status and upbringing, and how Ramona Park is home to this Crip presence. He wonders if New York, this city so far from his home that he wears on his body, would even know about him if he died. It’s heartbreaking the way he parallels this symbol for his gang status and this city. His home in Ramona Park seems so insignificant to this huge, foreign city to him. The thunderstorm is in full force and rain has finally fallen, Vince’s tears are hidden in the rain and the shift from love to fame in the second half begins.Yeah Right is a startling shift from the dreary, depressed atmosphere of the track before and Vince’s braggadocio is in full force. His rapping is accompanied by one of the most disgusting, harshest basslines I’ve ever heard in my entire life. It sounds so gritty and warbled, with background synths seesawing behind his rapping, talking about the pretty women from before but from a different aspect of Vince’s personality this time. Everything sounds chaotic and warbled before KUČKA’s voice breaks through with a stunning, beautiful bridge that leads into the arrival of Kendrick Lamar, top dog of the new school who delivers one of my favorite features from him period. It’s as if Vince is at the height of his bragging here, no credits on any of the song titles, and Kendrick shows up unannounced as if to say here’s the biggest, most critically and commercially acclaimed and lauded rapper out right now, a feature on my song. It’s structured amazingly, and I’m left wondering how Vince was able to convince his label to not have Kendrick credited on the title, as it would obviously receive much more attention. Regardless, Kendrick delivers an amazing verse, featuring a wonderful line in which at exactly 2:11 in the track, he states “211 got bread on me!” and the disgusting bass comes back in full force, 211 being the police code for robbery.The next track, Homage, acts as a way of confronting the crabs in his bucket while he pays homage to different flows and a direct sample of a Rick Ross hook. He talks about how people can’t hold him back anymore, Prima Donna was amazing and he deserves all the praise for it (which I agree with wholeheartedly), and he’s at the top of his game. This works as a double meaning in my eyes, as people can’t hold him back from success anymore and people cannot hold him back from expanding his sound and artistry beyond the ‘gangster rap’ label of the past. He is more than that, and this song acts as a big fuck you to everyone who wants him to stay in that sound. I love how he uses the “New Level” flow and the sampled Ross hook almost to say, this is the culture I’m in and I’m doing my own thing. This works in conjunction with SAMO, one of my favorite instrumentals on the album, in which Vince references people expecting him to keep doing the same sound over and over again. The production is heavy, with the bass reverberating alongside harsh synths stabs that sounds like a shark swimming through dark, murky waters. It’s an amazing piece that truly cements that feeling of Vince wanting to break through the confines set on him as an artist, and with the insane production you’d be hard pressed to disagree with him.Party People is the climax of the project and easily the most critical to the themes and concepts of the album, even above Alyssa Interlude. One of my favorite parts of the entire project is the opening to this song, as the kick drum sounds like someone tapping on a fish tank. The cover with the zoomed in picture on the face of the goldfish makes it look almost startled and frightened, as if someone just tapped on the glass and disturbed their tank. I envision those kicks to be that tapping, because coming off the braggadocio and ‘fuck you’ attitude of the past few tracks, the opening lines are the most raw of the entire project and set the tone for the rest of the song:I been fucked since my early daysI been stuck in my worldly waysPropaganda, press pan the cameraPlease don't look at me in my faceEverybody might see my painOff the rail, might off myselfThis is a stark contrast from the previous few tracks, as throughout the rest of the verse he talks more about his suicidal thoughts and how its “false bravado masked by wealth”. Someone has finally disturbed his place in the tank, and his fear and anxiety has come to the surface. The pre-hook reflects this as well:Move your body if you came here to partyIf not then pardon meHow I'm supposed to have a good timeWhen death and destruction's all I see?Out of sight, I'm out of my mindThe sound of sunshine is callin' meGood vibrations is all I needAll I need, all I needThe way this is delivered works perfectly with the chorus, in which he repeats lines about how he wants to see the party people dancing, and it sounds like someone pleading. He needs that energy because he doesn’t want to face his anxieties and insecurities. The second verse comes in, with lines that reference Vince referring to love as a “God” to him back in 745:I met God once at a rendezvous and felt star-struck"Vince, the car's out front"Got things to do, got to make my movesAnd the sound of a car screeching outside is heard. As soon as Vince has finally fallen in love he is immediately taken back to his life of fame, and even if he wants something more out of his love life, he doesn’t have the time because of the fame. It’s a truly fantastic track that works perfectly to explore all the themes present on the project, and is a good segue into the aggressive and political nature of BagBak.BagBak explores Vince’s politics and his standing as a black man in the current political landscape over the most uptempo and aggressive track yet. He talks about how there should be more black representation in politics and until he’s fully accepted as a black man and black people are fully equal in all ways Vince is going to go harder than ever before. It works perfectly as an end to the braggadocios side of the album, with Vince declaring that he and his people are finally on now, and everyone can suck his dick because they’re finally making it and fighting back. It works perfectly in conjunction with Rain Come Down, which returns to the sound of the first half of the album. On his first verse which is repeated twice for effect, Vince discusses his home of Long Beach and how cops don’t come around where he’s from, and he made it from where he’s from and people shouldn’t try to do the same because they’re not on his level. In the third verse, he touches on not wanting a relationship full of love, just fine women which reflects the rain finally coming down when he states thatMake it rain, in the clubDon't you dream of how it feel to be in love?The rain is now literally coming down in the form of dollars in the strip club, and Vince reflects asking if the woman dreams of the feeling of love. This disconnect is wonderfully established and it’s a great way to wrap everything up, and all this is done with a beautiful thumping beat and an amazing Ty Dolla $ign hook.Vince’s uncompromising commitment to pushing himself as an artist and making better, more genre bending and blurring music is uncontested. The result is a fantastic project that builds upon concepts and themes previously explored in a wonderful package that challenges both Vince and his listener to push their boundaries of what they are used to. As a longtime fan, I was not fully on board at first with the change in sound but over months of analyzing and listening and researching I feel as though I am completely confident in saying this is his best work and an absolutely amazing project. Big Fish Theory is a phenomenal, daring masterstroke by one of hiphop’s most crucial trailblazers.Discussion Questions:1) How long have you been following Vince Staples? How do you think that’s influenced how you feel about his changes in sound?2) What are your favorite lyrics from the project?3) Has this project made you want to check out the genres that influenced the sound of the production? If so, how did you like it?4) How do you feel about Prima Donna? Has this project made you go back and revisit it and feel differently?5) Where would you like to see Vince go from here? Any genres you’d like to see him explore?BONUS QUESTION FOR MY REAL ONES1) For those like me who have been following Vince since the Shyne Coldchain & Winter in Prague days, what’s been your favorite era in his career so far?

I'm kind of confused about how you feel about Lydia, I didn't think there was anything negative about the portrayal. You say she was just there for a lore dump but the way I see it, she was talking about her own life, an adventure she'd been on before. I didn't see it as dismissing her as a character

The short answer is that there isn’t anything hugely wrong with that scene. But because it’s the only real scene we’ve gotten with her so far, and because she is the most developed physically disabled character in all of D20, it is not enough.

To expand on that: Sure, she was telling the Bad Kids about her life and her previous adventures. But let’s think about why she was doing that in that moment. She was there because the Bad Kids needed to know more about her embedded crystal/metaphorical chronic illness in order to solve their own personal mysteries. She is a (very) supporting character in their narrative. We don’t get to see her go on a character arc, or change, or learn more about her desires as a character. Her disability story, which is very interesting, is in the show only because it serves the story needs of the nondisabled PCs.

Now of course all stories need supporting characters/npcs, and I am happy some of them are disabled. The problem arises when there has never been a physically disabled PC in Dimension 20. So the only disability narrative we see is in service of nondisabled characters. The problem is not Lydia; the problem is that she is alone.

You might recognize this problem with other media and other marginalized groups. To use a kind of simple example, I spent a lot of my childhood frustrated that the only women seemingly allowed in fantasy or action movies were the romantic interests of male protagonists. These love interests existed to serve the story of their male counterpart (often by dying dramatically and sending the male protagonist on some kind of revenge quest). There are still plenty of movies and shows that follow these tropes, but it bothers me way less now in 2024 because we also have a ton of tv and movies with complex female protagonists. The abundance of representation is what has changed.

I think this problem is extra clear on Dimension 20 because they have gotten SO many chances to center a disabled narrative and have not. They get up to six protagonists every season, which is way more than most tv or movies get.

Compared to a lot of other pieces of media that try to add in disabled characters, Dimension 20 is doing a good job with Lydia. They haven’t hired a nondisabled actor to play her (super common in tv and movies unfortunately) and they’ve clearly worked with consultants on her. I really like, for instance, that her persistence with the crystal prevents her being magically cured, which is one of my least favorite tropes. However, there is a huge trend in Hollywood of hiring disabled consultants when they want to tell a disabled story but never actually hiring a disabled writer for a full time, credited writing gig in a writers room. The players on D20 are the writing room. Why has a disabled person never been invited there?

Imagine, for a second, that we got a Fantasy High prequel season. All the adults we know in Fantasy High are teens, and they’re PCs. Imagine a really talented performer, who uses a wheelchair, playing Lydia. Imagine the emotional scenes we would see! Imagine the insight into her psyche we would get, the way her relationship to the Crystal would be developed. That’s what the scene with Lydia in Junior Year made me long for.

(I do have some frustration about the way Kristen reacted to Lydia, and the way that fandom reacted to Kristen. I did find Kristen offering empathy to Lydia in the form of the help action sweet, but being nice to a disabled person doesn’t deserve outsized praise, because we are not objects of pity. I also think the way that Kristen touched Lydia’s neck without permission is reminiscent of the way many wheelchair users are touched and pushed without permission, which is very violating. I don’t think Kristen would have had that same reaction to Sandra Lynn, for instance. Kristen is really Going Through It right now, so I’m not particularly mad at her for doing that. But it is irritating to see fandom singing the praises of the help action without acknowledging the touching without consent that followed).

Thank you for the question! I appreciate the opportunity to have a dialogue about this.

The Radical Act of Quitting (and Wilhelm)

This is a little more personal than my Young Royals metas normally are. It’s really one-half personal essay, one-half show analysis.  It’s something of a spiritual successor to my post about radical acceptance and Simon’s arc in season 2. And it’s also about the reasons why I want Wilhelm to renounce the crown by the end of season 3. (I am stating that early, because I know many people disagree. Feel free to engage but please do so with kindness; a lot of this is quite vulnerable for me.)

I’m disabled. Specifically, I have a chronic condition that began in my early twenties, and slowly got worse and worse until I was finally diagnosed at 28. I’m 31 now, and I’ve had to grieve the person I once was many times over. I used to be a dancer, I used to be an adventurous eater, I used to love to travel. My chronic pain and restrictive medical diet have taken those things away from me, piece by piece. But the thing I mainly want to talk about right now is quitting my job. At the time of my diagnosis, I had worked at my job full time for three years. For a few years after my diagnosis, I tried to remain at my job part-time, because I loved it. I worked in the music industry, and I had the best team of coworkers. I had a great work/life balance, I was never stressed about work. I looked forward to each day in the office. When I went to events and had to introduce myself during an ice-breaker, I would usually include a fact about my job. I found a lot of my identity there. All of my work directly supported musicians, which was something I was very proud of.

So I tried very, very hard to hang on to my job. My company gave out these ridiculously heavy plaques for employees who had been at the company for 5 years, and I was determined to get one. But it was really hard. I could no longer type sitting up for more than a few minutes, so I did every day from my lap desk in bed. (This is still where I write all of my fic and meta!) I struggled to talk to customers on the phone while I was in pain. The office was closed because of the pandemic, but I would have had to work from home regardless because I couldn’t handle the commute.  Every day was a slog. And my pain and fatigue weren’t getting better. In fact they were continuing to get worse as time went on. Finally, my five-year work anniversary arrived. I made it, but I felt like a runner barely stumbling over the finish line. It was the end of 2021. I talked with my friends and my therapist and my disability benefits lawyer. “I don’t think I can keep working,” I would say. And then I would cry, because the thought of letting go of this last part of my identity, when my illness had already taken so much, was so horrible.

After several months of deliberating and grieving, I quit.  My boss begged me to reconsider (God bless him, honestly). Was there anything he could do to better accommodate my needs? Could I work a different schedule to let me sleep more? Could I work freelance on specific projects they really needed me on? I wanted to say yes so badly. But I knew. The longer I held on, the more I fought, the worse my health would become. And the worse my health would become, the more I would struggle with work. The joy I had felt during my first three years in that office had already drained away. I was fighting just to get through each day, and I didn’t want to fight anymore.

I recognize that having the resources and disability benefits to even consider quitting is a huge privilege. There are a lot of disabled and chronically ill folks who struggle through work at great detriment to their health because they can’t afford not to keep working.  So I recognize how lucky I was to be able to quit. I am so grateful for that option, even as I mourn all the things I have lost.

In my meta about Simon, I talked about radical acceptance and how it has been my guiding light as a disabled person. Embracing radical acceptance means that I have done my best to accept what I can and cannot do, and what I can and cannot control, without judgment. I accepted that I needed to walk away from my job. But how was I supposed to define myself without it?

Capitalism defines most peoples’ self-identity, whether they realize it or not. We identify with our jobs, or with the “grind” culture, or with the moral goodness associated with working hard. But here I was, without a job. And I had my whole adult life ahead of me. I had to find a way to make a new identity outside of work.

Around this time, I started to gravitate towards stories where characters are faced with similar decisions, even if I didn’t realize it yet. And let me tell you, there aren’t many of them.

@bluedalahorse and I talk about this a lot. In our ultra-franchised world, the point of stories, even those that are supposedly about rebellions, is often to return characters to the status quo, so that the next movie/comic/episode can pick back up where the last one left off. And when there is a significant change in the status quo, it is usually because the characters worked, and pushed, and struggled to achieve that change. It’s very rare to see a story about someone who walked away from something that was harming them. It’s rarer still to find something that deals with the aftermath, as characters work to re-establish themselves.

I’ve found a lot of comfort in true stories of people leaving cults and high demand religions, and of queer people forced to leave their conservative families behind. In all of these cases, people are consciously abandoning a predominant belief system that is harming them, and have to start over as they craft their new sense of identity. (I am also queer, which adds an additional level of connection). Often people in these situations come to rely on their found family, a thing I have also found to be true in my own life.

I quit my job in between seasons 1 and 2 of Young Royals, and I don’t think I realized how many themes connected my experience to Wilhelm’s until I was watching season 2. Wilhelm is the protagonist of Young Royals, and his central dramatic question has always been: will he fulfill his duty as a royal? Or will he quit, and discover who he is beyond the system he was raised in? Simon is a huge part of this decision, obviously, but the question has never been strictly about Simon.

While I have no personal experience with the monarchy, I do know what it’s like to consider walking away from a role that you assumed you would fill for the rest of your life. I know what it’s like to think about quitting your job.

There’s so much pressure on Wilhelm to assume the role of perfect Crown Prince. He’s told constantly—by Kristina, by Jan-Olof, by the court-- that he can’t let his family or his country down by deviating from this role in any way.

This is a pretty common experience for people who are trying to quit something. They are told that they will let down those around them if they leave. People who are leaving high demand religions are told that they will not be able to enter heaven.  Queer people in conservative families are told they can’t come out because “it would break [elderly relative]’s heart and kill them.” When I quit my job, I thought a lot about how I’d be letting down my coworkers and everyone who knew me as a hyper-competent career-driven person.(This included some of my doctors by the way, who expressed their disappointment in my failure to adhere to their idea of a “worthy” disabled person, i.e. someone who soldiered through the pain and continued to work. Some withdrew care because of this and honestly I will never forgive them). And maybe I was letting people down, and maybe ex-Mormons really will spend the afterlife in outer darkness, and maybe all the grandmas of queer people will be so upset that they kick the bucket when their grandkids come out. But ultimately, if your happiness or safety or well being depends on leaving, it doesn’t really matter. You have to do it anyway.  You have to abandon the things that you can no longer carry. You have to discover who you are on the other side of religion, of the closet, of capitalism.

I think about this every time people in the fandom talk about how Wilhelm leaving the line of succession will create a constitutional crisis, or impact all of Sweden negatively. I am personally pretty anti-monarchist, but I honestly can’t even tell you if I think that Wilhelm removing himself from the line of succession would bring about the end of the Swedish monarchy or not. Honestly, I don’t really care.  I care about Wilhelm. I want him to seek happiness, to search for the future that must live on the other side of this oppressive system he finds himself in. A constitutional crisis? That’s Kristina’s problem, that’s Jan-Olof’s problem, that’s the government’s problem. Radical acceptance means focusing on the things you can control, and Wilhelm can only control his own happiness.

When this issue gets debated, I often see people argue that Wilhelm is too young to make the decision to give up the throne. But the reality is that we ask teenagers to make decisions about their futures all the time. @bluedalahorse wrote a great piece of meta about that here. I love what she said so much I’m going to quote it directly:

Nonetheless, we ask teenagers of Sara and Wilhelm’s ages to think about decisions that affect their future all the time. We ask them to consider what career they’ll pursue or what university to attend. Teenagers who grow up in various denominations of Christianity consider whether they’re going to go through with Confirmation or sometimes Baptism. Other religions (ones where I can’t speak from as much personal experience) have various other rites of passage around this age, and various cultures have coming of age rituals. For some teens, they do these things willingly and with their whole heart, whereas for others, they do it to please their parents or families or for the social norms of it all.

And if Wilhelm is too young to decide to give up the throne, how can he be old enough to decide to keep it? Surely the decision to take on the governance of a country, even in a symbolic way, requires as much, if not more, maturity than the decision to pursue a less high-powered career elsewhere.

When people in the fandom claim that Wilhelm is too young to make this decision, I hear Kristina telling Wilhelm to wait until he’s 18 to come out, because only then will he be responsible enough to deal with the consequences. That’s a delaying tactic, and nothing more. People who don’t want you to leave will ask you to delay your decision over and over again, because they think that if they can kick the can down the road just a little farther, they’ll never have to lose you.

I also see people argue that Wilhelm isn’t qualified to make a decision because he doesn’t know enough about the “real world” to know what he is choosing. To be honest I don’t think most teenagers know much about the “real world”. I definitely didn’t. But we ask them to make decisions that will affect their futures anyway. And here’s another way to look at this: Wilhelm has plenty of places he can look to for examples of how “ordinary” people live. He can find out what it’s like to be from a noble but non-royal family from the students at Hillerska. He can talk to Simon and Linda about what their lives are like. He can read the millions of books, or watch the thousands of movies and TV shows that feature non-royal protagonists and were created by non-royal artists. But only Wilhelm knows what it is like to be Crown Prince. No one else has had that experience. So I would argue that actually, Wilhelm is the only one qualified to make this call.

Ultimately, the agency and mental capacity of people who are quitting is often doubted, usually by the people who have the most to gain by keeping them in place.

So many people have so much invested in maintaining the status quo. And as soon as you invest in a system, someone daring to leave puts your world view into question. Why are you dealing with so many oppressive rules if someone else can just leave? We see this a lot with high demand religions and cults; if someone threatens to break free, the members often join ranks and work together to pressure them to stay. What has your sacrifice as a woman in a patriarchal religion meant, for example, if another woman can decide to simply walk away? Does Kristina’s grim life of duty and sacrifice matter, if Wilhelm can just opt out and seek happiness instead? 

Then of course, there are all the benefits that an oppressive system confers on its most privileged members. Those benefits are in danger of disappearing if enough people quit, so high ranking people will work to keep others in line.  Think about all the people who benefit from the monarchy: all the staff who work for the royal family, all the nobles who get their reputation by proximity to the monarch, and everyone in Sweden who in general benefits from the image that a long-standing institution of white, straight, conservative power projects.

And those aren’t people Wilhelm needs to be responsible for (or should be concerned with placating, to be honest). If the monarchy fails because Wilhelm leaves, it’s because there’s always been a fault in the system. Those relying on this outdated system have signed their own fate.

No one knows fully what life will be like after they quit. That’s the radical acceptance part of quitting. You have to make a blind leap, and discover a whole new world once you land. Wilhelm is no more sheltered than anyone before they take this leap. Everyone who quits—a religion, a cult, a job—has to go through this process of rediscovery.  You have to learn by doing. People do that successfully all the time, and I believe that Wilhelm can too.

When I was talking about this meta with @bluedalahorse, we talked a lot about Plato’s allegory of the cave. That story goes something like this:

Several prisoners have been kept inside a cave their entire life. They are chained to the spot, and cannot move. They are facing the back wall of the cave. Behind them is a fire, and in between them and the fire, their captors walk back and forth, casting shadows on the wall. Because the prisoners have been kept in the cave their entire life and have only ever seen shadows, they think the shadows are real. They think the only thing that exists in the world is shadows. Until one day, one of the prisoners is set free. He goes outside for the first time, where he is blinded by the sun and overwhelmed by stimulus. But he discovers the real world. He now knows that the shadows he was used to are pale imitations of the real things. He’s so excited that he goes back to tell his fellow prisoners what he has learned. But the prisoners get angry at him for challenging their world view. They don’t believe him, no matter what he says.

There are a lot of ways you can interpret this story. Some people think that Plato is talking about the role of philosophers in society. Some people use it to explain a philosophical concept he writes about elsewhere called “forms”. But I think one thing is clear. Plato didn’t write the allegory of the cave (and it didn’t stick around in human imagination for thousands of years) because he thought you should stay in the cave. Leaving the cave is hard. You will be met with resistance. But discovering the real world, when you were only seeing shadows before, is worth it.

I want Wilhelm to leave to be happy, to see the real world instead of shadows. But I also believe it’s what the story demands. It’s the only answer that makes asking the dramatic question—should Wilhelm conform or rebel?—worthwhile to me.

To be king, but to be the first gay king, would be such an unsatisfactory ending for me. It reminds me of how hard I tried to keep my job—by working from bed, by reducing my hours. My boss could do the best he could to be accommodating, but ultimately working was harming me. You can’t adapt the monarchy enough to make it a non-damaging space for Wilhelm, because there will always be people pressuring him to conform to its straight, stoic ideals. Those ideals have been around for hundreds of years, and to put all of the burden of reforming them on Wilhelm is unfair and unrealistic. If he does stay, I see him struggling to change a system that is not designed for him. Even if he does make small victories for representation or inclusion in that context, it will come at an enormous emotional cost. I just don’t think it’s worth it. Not when there’s a whole world where Wilhelm could be doing good, important work– in whatever arena he chooses– that won’t also come along with inherent emotional trauma. 

Believe me, there’s a whole world to be discovered after you walk away from something that’s damaging you. You grieve, yes, but you also grow. Since quitting I’ve been able to love my friends harder, to treat myself better, to give back to the disabled community.  I think if you talk to most people who have committed a similar act of radical quitting they’ll say the same thing.  I want this future for Wilhelm, but I also want this kind of story to exist for all of us. I want there to be a story that represents those of us who have had to make these kinds of decisions. I want there to be a story that can encourage people who are currently wrestling with their desire to leave and the pressure to stay. And I want there to be a story that shows the hope, the bravery, and the self-belief that is required to walk away and seek a brighter future.

Wake up babe, hot new EDS meme just dropped.

The world told me that Iron Widow had a canonical triad and good polyam rep, which was enough to get me to read. The world did NOT tell me that Wu Zetian is disabled and does [climactic extremely badass thing that is a spoiler] FROM HER WHEELCHAIR OH MY GOD I AM OBSESSED

A thing about me is that I will always root for and deeply understand a disabled character filled with rage, especially if they are fighting tooth and nail against an unjust system. This book has the juice and I am LIVING.

Moments of crip badassery and solidarity in shadow and bone season 2

I am still processing. I mainly loved it. I had a few quibbles. But before I forget, can we talk about disability in the grishaverse? including:

When Kaz gave Nikolai his cane, because he's "more familiar with pain"

When the Darkling received a prosthetic arm, so did Adric, to show that limb loss and difference is not a punishment for evil.

And similarly, Ghenya's arc to learn to see her scars as symbols of the strength of her survival and not as a reflection on her character, which directly counteracted the association between scars and the Darkling

David, being the neurodivergent king that he is and supporting Ghenya

Adric supporting Ghenya when they are searching for David, and her specifically realizing she is leaning on his prosthetic arm. (also. i sobbed.)

Wylan being the neurodivergent king that he is (more in the spin off plssssss)

The sacredness with which Ohval treated her care taking duties, and the way in which taking care of her husband was a joy and not a burden, and how that lesson landed with Kaz.

The way that when Nadia and Adric were both disabled in the fight, they were able to help each other continue to summon. Their impairment was real but so was the way they were able to support each other.

Just Kaz, in general. I support disabled rights AND disabled wrongs.

This isn't a perfect rep show. None of the actors are actually disabled (I love Freddy, but I still wish Kaz was played by a real disabled actor and not someone cripping up) and I would like to see more disabled creators behind the scenes as well. But I LOVED all of these little moments.