#if books 4 and 5 call this internet essay a joke then fine. fine. i accept being a clown :(

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I should probably revisit this topic again when I finish books 4 and 5 because an analysis would be incomplete without finishing the novel. But for now, I’ve been thinking some thoughts.

I think the play between free will, fate, karma, and luck in the novel is super interesting. Something about Xie Lian trying to find the “third path” and Shi Wudu defying fate and Hua Cheng’s uncanny power over luck... like, with all these elements, I’m sure. I’m sure if I think about it hard enough, I can understand why the motto of the book is “no paths are bound” even though time and time again the characters keep telling Xie Lian and the reader that there is suffering when you fight fate and that, conventionally, you shouldn’t meddle with fate. Xianle is proof of this.

Yet Shi Wudu was able to overcome fate (at the cost of a scholar’s misfortune and that of his family’s). And he was successful for a long time too! He would’ve gotten away with it if He Xuan wasn’t resentful enough to power his way through death and come out of it as a calamity with an obsession with revenge.

Hua Cheng was supposed to live a life of misfortune too, I believe (Star of Solitude baby). But when we meet him in the book, he’s already a wealthy and powerful ghost king with all the power of luck in his hands.

I posted this on reddit but I think (??) that’s what the problem of two cups is about?

So my reddit response went like this:

Interestingly, Xie Lian as LQQ's Guoshi gives a similar story. Two people are hungry and trying to rob each other of food. Guoshi!Xie Lian posits that to solve the problem, the third person must give food from their own purse. Similarly, his two sword attack that saved LQQ's life twice only works because the third person (Xie Lian) absorbs the attacks. We're starting to see a pattern here.

When Guoshi!Xie Lian finishes, LQQ asks what would happen if the third person didn't have enough food to provide. Xie Lian asks, "What do you think?" and LQQ answers, "Maybe he shouldn't have intercepted from the start."

Sounds familiar? The problem of the two cups foreshadows how Xie Lian handles the fall of Xianle. It's even more on the nose when you think of how Xianle's doom started because of a drought. Yong'an was thirsty, there are only limited resources, and it's not like the king didn't try to mitigate this (although imo he was still fairly incompetent as a ruler). Xie Lian's solution was to create more rain with the Rain Master's help. To "provide another cup" but that cup is not enough, may have even been too late. We all know how Book 2 ended.

Throughout the book, Xie Lian says he wants to save the common people, but he doesn't always have the power to do so. Nobody does and it's ridiculous to put that burden on just one person. That's what Xie Lian did to himself, what Xianle did to Xie Lian. He was put on a pedestal and doomed to fall because, god or not, he's only human and could not provide another cup.

There is another thing to point out, but I don't think I can speak on it until I finish the novel. Xie Lian's answer, to "give another cup," is him trying to choose the (impossible?) "third path." I've seen this mentioned in the novel several times.

When Xie Lian tries to solve all the problems of Xianle and keeps failing, Mu Qing admonishes him, "THEY REACHED THEIR BAD END, WE’LL ALREADY HAVE PERISHED! YOU DON’T HAVE A THIRD PATH AND THERE IS NO SECOND CUP OF WATER. WAKE UP, YOUR HIGHNESS! YOU’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME.”

When He Xuan exacts his revenge plan and Shi Wudu tries to bargain, He Xuan says coldly, "Did I give you a third path?"

When White No-Face meets Xie Lian at the Kiln, he offers Xie Lian a third path (for XL to kill himself then kill White No-Face and escape the Kiln as a Supreme).

In other words, each time a "third path" is presented, the novel posits that it's an impossibility. You have to work with the choices presented to you. And any time you mess with fate (Xianle, Wuyong?, SQX, etc.) it always ends in suffering for someone. You can't please everyone.

Interestingly though, TGCF's motto is "no paths are bound." And there is one person whose fate was changed for the better: Hua Cheng. Hua Cheng was born under the Star of Solitude and is supposedly destined to live a life of misfortune. And yet now, he is the Supreme Ghost King with all the wealth and power and incredible, incredible luck. In many ways, Hua Cheng for some reason (because he was saved by Xie Lian, a “savior” to nullify the Star of Solitude’s fate?) was able to defy his predestined fate of misfortune.

And oftentimes, it's with his intervention (his luck?) that Xie Lian in the present can freely explore his third paths.

Now, I'm still procrastinating on Book 4 and 5 so I can't definitely say yet what the conclusion of the novel is yet with regards to the theme of choosing a third path. Maybe Xie Lian makes a "third path" solution work for him one day? I know some spoilers and can think of a few possible answers to this, but I can't say until I finish the novel.

But yeah, I think that despite what Guoshi probably wanted to teach us, we should still keep in mind that one of the novel's themes is, "no paths are bound" :D

So! All that said, I’ve been thinking some thoughts, as one does. I’m not sure if I’m reading too much into it, if I’m biased and reading with an agenda lol. Again, I’ll revisit this when I finish books 4 and 5.

But I’m thinking about how Hua Cheng respects Xie Lian’s decisions and is always there to unconditionally support him unless it ends in self-harm. All the times they “shared spiritual energy”

Book 3 is titled “No Paths Are Bound.” Let’s go over some events. When Xie Lian was at the lake trying to catch the fetus spirit, he had a dilemma. If he should come up for air, he would swallow the spirit, so naturally (in his eyes) he could just swallow Fangxin too. Otherwise, he’d drown. But Hua Cheng arrives and gives him another option: he could just give him air, duh!

In the Black Water arc, Hua Cheng urged Xie Lian not to meddle too much. When SQX gets kidnapped by the Reverend, they could either try to find them on their own (a futile effort) or let them be. They can’t report to the heavens because Shi Wudu was preparing for his heavenly calamity. But then, Hua Cheng shares his spiritual powers to Xie Lian that allows him to explore a third option: why not just switch places with SQX? Brilliant!

So idk how the novel will wrap up its themes, but I’m thinking that if we continue in this direction, one way we can see this end is like this. The premise is: you can’t save the world alone. Sometimes kindness and hard work alone is not enough to overcome fate, because fate intertwines people and taking something for yourself means taking something away from others. But. But. If fate intertwines people, then if those people could work together, would they be able to change their future? If luck works like karma, if it works to balance things out, then can it be shared?

I think this is how the book will end (lol if I’m wrong then welp, take this whole essay as a joke, it’s fine) because it ties very, very neatly with how Xie Lian first meets Hua Cheng at the ox cart.

On the way to Puqi village, they discover that it’s the Zhongyuan festival and they must be careful not to cross over to the ghost realm. In the forest, they meet a fork in the road that splits into two paths. Xie Lian takes out a fortune shaker and lets fortune decide their path.

“By Heaven Official’s Blessing, no paths are bound! Every road leads to heaven, may they all be walked! The first stick left, the second stick right! We’ll go the path with the best fortune!”

Naturally, his sticks always have the worst of luck. But Hua Cheng intervenes and tries his luck, and of course, his luck is always good. I’m not sure if the point of this scene is that their lucks cancel each other out, but regardless, isn’t it so lucky for them to meet in the first place? Or maybe it’s fate after all?

Either way, point is, if Xie Lian tried to save the two of them alone, fortune says they will meet a bad end. Or, well, they will go through an unlucky path. Xie Lian tries to give another cup, a third path, and like a magic 8 ball, fate says “that’s a bad idea, no”

But Hua Cheng goes, “nah, we’re in this together” and helps him out. And the thing is. I don’t think it’s even a matter of Hua Cheng overpowering Xie Lian’s fate, because time and time again all he really does is let Xie Lian decide where to go and he just follows. He doesn’t solve Xie Lian’s problems for him, but he shares the burden. And maybe. Maybe that’s the point?

If two people are thirsty and there’s only one cup of water, and the one who drinks lives and the one who doesn’t dies, as a god who would you give the cup to? Well, why not let them share the cup? If changing the fortune of one person reverses another person’s fortune, why can’t those two people work together and ping-pong those fortunes back and forth to each other and create their own future together?

There’s something to be said here about agency and whatnot but my brain is scrambled and this post is too long. But at least, I think I’ve successfully procrastinate from starting book 4 with this internet essay lol

[sabraeal]

Rarely Pure & Never Simple, Chapter 5

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

Obiyuki Week, Day 5 Wrath | Patience

By May, Shirayuki has been at Clarines High -- that’s what they call it, no matter whose name is above the entrance, for reasons no one has been able to explain to her -- for eight months, and she’d be hard-pressed to name a single thing Tanbarun Academy could hold over it, except, well...

The backpack ban.

(”It’s not that hard to get around,” Kihal tells her, picking at the pastrami in her sub.

“You can just get a messenger bag,” Obi adds around the remains of his Mayflower. Why someone would want stuffing in a sandwich, Shirayuki will never quite know, but from how baggy his band tees are, he could probably use the calories. “You know, the rind is what has all the flavor.”

“I don’t want the flavor, I want prosciutto, but some people don’t know there’s more than one deli meat with a ‘p.’“

Obi shrugs a shoulder, unapologetic. “We don’t have fancy sliced ham where I come from. If you want pork you have to stab the pig yourself.”

“Oh please.” Kihal’s eyelashes flutter as she rolls her eyes, and it strikes her -- Kihal is flirting. With Obi. “As if you’ve ever seen a pig.”

“I’ve seen them on the side of a can,” he says, all smiles, and Kihal sighs, not even noticing how he’s -- he’s not joking. Shirayuki can’t say she knows Obi much more than she knows anyone here, but --

But she knows what it’s like when you don’t want to talk about hard stuff. Real stuff. Not when everyone around you asks about what you did for your Sweet Sixteen, still.

“See?” Kihal jerks a thumb at him. “If this idiot can figure it out, you can too.”

Shirayuki glances between them, first at Kihal’s flat look and then Obi’s bemused one. “But messenger bags are so bad for your spine!”)

English book? Check. A Tale of Two Cities? Check. Her English notebook, with the three-ring binder definitely, for real closed and not about to spill out onto the floor? Check. Pencil case, with all her writing utensils, including the highlighters? Check.

Shirayuki hefts her haul up, arms quivering, and lets out a satisfied sigh. Sure, Obi may call this doubling down on a bad idea, but life’s too long for scoliosis --

“Ms Leon?” A tall shadow falls across her desk, and even if she weren’t still in his classroom, Shirayuki would know it was Mr Haruka from sternness alone. “Stay after class, if you would.”

She jolts upright, a good eight of her fifteen smooth-glide, fine-tipped journal pens -- all different colors, because who can properly color-code with only black, blue and red, for goodness’ sake -- spill right out on the floor. Ah, she forgot to do the Closed Pencil Case check.

“Y-yes, sir!” She looks him right in the eyes, but they give away nothing, and all she can think is -- plagiarism. She somehow forgot that she read something on the internet, put it in her last essay, and now she’s going to get expelled, barely a month before she graduates --

“Ms Leon.” His mouth curls, just the smallest bit, right at one corner. “Please breathe. And do pick up your writing implements.”

“Oh, yes, um.” She hurries to put the pens back in their case, taking surreptitious glances at his Oxfords. “Sorry, that’s -- important. Breathing, I mean.”

She can’t see his face but she could swear -- swear -- he laughs. Just under his breath, the lightest chuckle. “Over this way, if you please.”

She looks up, following his arm until she realizes -- his desk. He’s pointing at his desk. And the small chair to one side of it. “Oh.”

“Shirayuki.” Her eyes jump to him, and -- oh, yes. Mr Haruka is definitely laughing at her. “You’re not in trouble. I promise.”

“Oh, right.” She lets out a giggle that is awkward, too high-pitched to be anything but pure nerves. “Of course not. Why would I be in trouble? I mean--”

“Just sit, Shirayuki.” He takes the chair behind his desk, shaking his head. “We have a lot to talk about.”

“Valedictorian?” she squeaks. “You’re telling me I’m valedictorian?”

“No! No.” Mr Haruka waves his hands gently, neck swiveling toward the door, as if that might make her words softer, as if he could stop the sound from leaving the room. “We don’t...do those things here. Because of the children.”

His tone makes it very clear that he is not so worried about the children as the administration is.

“Metrics like that might hurt more the fragile eg-- feelings of our students.” His mouth pulls into a grimace. “So we no longer...rank our high achievers. Instead, we invite the top one percent of our senior class to submit a speech. Which is what I’m doing right now. Inviting you to submit one.”

She stares. “But...I only started at Clarines this year. No one could possibly--”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Ms Leon.” His hands fold neatly on top of his desk calendar, which is all she can look at, because she knows -- she knows if she looks at him when he says what he’s going to say next -- “Your experience is just as valuable and important as anyone’s here, and if you -- my god, are you crying?”

“No,” she sniffs, but hot tracks already burn down her cheeks. He thrusts out a fistful of tissues from the box on his desk, staring at the wall like if he doesn’t look, it can’t possibly be happening. “Maybe.”

“Just...clean yourself up,” he tells her, stern, but when she glances up, he’s blushing. “As I was saying, your grades put you at the top of the class, and even if you’ve only been here a year, clearly you’ve made your mark.”

“Thank you,” she manages, little more than a squeak. “But I still think--”

“And unlike your other classmates, you’re literate,” Haruka tells the wall, as if she’s hardly there. “And you’re a good thinker. Your essays are concise and show more original thought than most any I’ve seen in twenty years of teaching. Besides --” his eyes dart back to her, mouth twitching at the corner -- “the kids say that if you’re the Honor Society Advisor’s favorite student, you’re a shoe-in to be picked.”

She blinks. “But, sir. You’re the advisor for the Honor Society.”

His mouth quivers. “Yes, Shirayuki, I am.”

“But...” Her jaw snicks shut. “Oh. Oh.”

“They’re due at the end of next week,” he tells her. “But you can drop it off on my desk as early as Monday. That is, if you’d like--”

“Yes. I mean, I will.” She jumps up, chair screeching across the tile. “Monday.”

He settles back in his chair, concern flitting across his features. “You know, you can’t take your time--”

“Don’t worry,” she tells him with a smile. “I’ll have it perfect.”

She’s halfway home when she feels the buzz in her pocket, and guilt nearly drags her under when her notification screen light’s up with Obi’s smiling portrait.

(”Did you crop this?” Obi’s grin is too wide for safety, and far too close.

“Y-yes!” His breath is hot on her neck, but she is going to finish this essay if it kills her. Which it might, if he keeps on looking at her like -- like that. “I can’t just --” words abandon her -- “have that show up, when my grandparents are around.”

His grin only turns more wicked. “Really? I think Nanna might appreciate--”

“Well, you could certainly ask her, since she got a real eyeful the last time you were over.” Shirayuki had expected a revision of the six-inch rule for her door, but instead Nanna had only smiled and told her, some things can just stay between us girls.

His eyes pulse wide. “It’s just my chest, kid. Not like I sent you a dick --”

“Please,” she squeal, covering her face. “Don’t.”)

Hey babe, it reads, and her stomach flips, just the smallest bit. Just wanted 2 remind u that i was hanging with Zen n every1 tonight.

Her mental calendar clicks into place, and she realizes -- Friday. It’s Friday. He has his usual pick-up game with friends, and she spends the night studying. Unless she goes with him, but even though things are fine between her and Zen -- good, even -- she doesn’t need to rub all this in his face. Especially when he’s hoping for a good time with his friends.

And if tonight’s Friday...

That’s fine. I have something I need to do this weekend. See you on Monday!

Instead of studying -- which she should do, really; finals are coming up in another week -- she spends the night googling things like best graduation speeches, and best HIGH SCHOOL graduation speeches, and best high school graduation speeches by new students not funny. After her nine or tenth compilation video she cuts herself off.

Three days to write a speech. It has to be short, but not too short; sweet, but not saccharine; and funny. Which she can’t do, so she’ll just settle for poignant instead.

With a few short taps, her phone is silenced. No interruptions. Just a weekend with her and a word processor, hoping something like wisdom comes out.

She can do this.

“Shirayuki?”

She startles, and it’s only Nanna’s hand that keeps her from face-planting right into the carpet. She’d fallen asleep, right here at the desk, and --

The speech.

Her neck swivels so fast it makes a painful crack, but there it is, on the screen --

“Oh my gosh,” she breathes. “It’s gibberish.”

“You were on the keyboard, dear,” Nanna sighs, leaning over her. She clicks the cursor and drags all the way up the screen, scrolling past almost three pages of nonsense to --

“Oh, oh!” She grips the edge of the desk. “It’s all there. It’s done!”

“Good girl.” Nanna pats her head, giving her a good scritch at the crown, like she always does. “But Obi’s on the horn.”

“The--?” She blinks, looking up at the cordless cradled against her cardigan. “He called the house?”

“He called the house,” Nanna agrees, very slow, like she’s afraid the implication might miss her. “And he sounds like he’s in a state.”

“Why wouldn’t he just call--?” Shes click her phone on, and the face of it proudly proclaims Obi: 12 missed calls, followed by a run of cut-off text messages. “Oh no.”

She holds her hand out, and Nanna drops the receiver into it. “Obi? Is something -- is something wrong?“

He lets out a laugh but it sounds -- ragged. “I don’t know, is there?”

She blinks. “Should I know?”

“Shirayuki.” His voice is tight, tense. “You haven’t talked to me since Thursday.”

“What? But I--?” She clamps down hard as she looks at their texts.

That’s fine. I have something I need to do this weekend. See you on Monday! still sits above her keyboard, unsent. Above it is, well --

hey is everything okay? kid is something up? you arent picking up your phone. please call me are you angry at me?

She blinks at that one. What could she possibly --

Oh no. Thursday.

(The applause is still rolling from the Daily Double, but Shirayuki can barely remember what the answer is, let alone the question when Obi’s touching her like this, his skirt up around her hips and his fingers deep inside her.

“It better not be College Jeopardy,” Lata calls out from the foyer, door closing behind him, but it’s too late, far too late to do more than stare as he walks into the room, face screwed up in annoyance. “I refuse to watch another night that makes the New York Times crossword look like a Gordian--”

Obi’s back is to him, so it’s Shirayuki that sees his gaze fall on it, then on the shirt discarded on the coffee table and the panties on the carpet, little banana splits smiling up at the plaster ceiling, and at last on the GWU shirt on the latest contestant before he turns on his heel and walks right of the room.)

please call me. we can work this out i promise i can do better

“Oh my gosh, Obi,” she breathes. There’s more but she -- she can’t look at that. Not right now. “I’m so sorry. I thought I had -- my text didn’t send!”

The silence from his end is deafening. “Your what?”

“I’ve been working on a project all weekend,” she admits, voice shaking. “And I silenced my phone so I could, you know, avoid distractions. I just -- I thought I pressed send, but I didn’t, and I’m -- I’m so sorry!”

There’s a pause, and then he must have put his phone down because she can hear him roaring with laughter, just...muted.

“Kid, kid,” he breathes, louder this time, brighter. “You are...something else.”

She’s glad he can’t see her, because he’d definitely call this painful red cute. “I...I guess.”

“Well?” She can almost see his eyebrows raising. “Did you finish?”

“Oh! Yes!” She spins, clicking at the doc. “I’m -- I’m just printing it out now.”

“So...” His voice slides straight into that easy purr, the one that makes her thighs clench just thinking about it. “...You don’t need to avoid distractions anymore?”

Even with all -- that, she still nearly says, I guess not, as if she hasn’t picked up his subtle hints, but her brain catches up quicker than her mouth. She snaps her teeth over the words, giving herself a breath to think.

“Finals are next week,” she says carefully, watching the door. She can’t see Nanna, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t lurking in the hall, waiting to catch her. “You need to study, don’t you?”

His grin is practically audible. “Come over here. Lyrias’s finals are this week, so Lata left early.”

She presses her thighs together, and -- three days. It’s been three days.

“I’ll be over in a bit,” she tells him, all in a rush. “Make sure you come up with a study plan.”

“Oh, trust me,” he rumbles. “I know exactly what I’m going to do.”

“All right, my worst subject is gonna be English, because I forcibly forgot Catcher in the Rye, and now I gotta relearn it,” Obi tells her, and -- and he whips out a piece of paper, written in no less than five colors, and drops it in her lap. “But after that is chem. I don’t know shit about how orbitals work.”

“Oh!” She stares down, squinting at the chicken scratch that is just barely more legible than usual. Never has she been less excited by color-coding. “You actually...you actually made a plan.”

“These are the last set of finals I’m ever going to take in high school,” he tells her, teeth flashing behind his lips. “Hopefully. So I gotta -- gotta make it good right?”

I thought you wanted to make out, sits right on the tip of her tongue, but she looks at him, grinning at her so hard it crinkles his eyes, finally excited and she --

“Right.” She takes out her own, and props them side-by-side on his night table, edges curling in on one another. “Let’s get to work then.”

There’s a flaw in her plan.

Her palms sweat around the folder she holds in them, fingers sticking with an awkward squich as she taps them on the plastic. She had plans for today. Big plans. Plans that involved a mirror and a red pen, but now --

“Obi.”

He looks up from his notes, bubbly p-bonds blooming across the page, and her breath catches right in her chest. It’s soft yet -- yet hungry, molten and knowing, and it’s exactly how he looks right before he kisses her.

Shirayuki can ignore that though. She has -- business.

“Mm?” he hums, and that -- that’s trouble right there, the way he leans in smelling all nice --

Focus! Focus. That’s what she needs to do. “I need you to help me with something.”

This isn’t a good idea, not when this is the first time they’ve had time to be alone, just the two of them, in days, but -- it’s important.

His mouth curls, and oh, maybe she needs to be a little clearer about what she means by help --

“Well, kid?” he rumbles, leaning his chin on his hand. “I’m all ears.”

There isn’t enough air in this room.

That -- that’s the problem here. It’s got to be almost eighty out there, and sure, Lata’s house has central air, but Obi’s just...covered up a vent. That’s why she’s sweating, gasping for each breath like she’s run uphill; that’s why she’s so light-headed she could faint, not --

“Oh, god,” Shirayuki moans, clutching at his back, skin slick beneath her fingertips. “Please...”

-- Not anything to do with what he’s doing between her legs. Oh no, all this quivering just -- just because they need to open a window.

“What was that?” Obi rumbles, grinning against her neck. He lifts her hips, just a little, so that her ass tilts up on his knees, and then he slides his fingers deeper, just where she wants them --

“Holy--”

“I can’t hear you,” he says, too innocent, nipping right at the curve of her jaw. His hand stills, just short of where she needs him. “Maybe you don’t like--?”

Her fingers band around his wrist, showing him just what she’d like. Still he doesn’t do the -- the thing; touching her like this is all fine and good, but sometimes he does this...fluttery thing inside, and she --

“Did you want this?” he asks, half-breathless, and his fingers move. Stars bloom in her vision, bright against the black of her eyelids, and --

Well, she doesn’t have any complaints about it, that’s for sure.

“Stop teasing.” she pants, hips raising to chase his hand. “Just--”

Oh, it’s -- it’s very hard to keep any sort of thoughts in his head while he’s -- he’s doing things.

“Teasing?” It’s an inquisitive rumble right above her heart, eyebrows lifting in the worst impression of surprise she’s ever seen. “I can’t do what you want if you don’t tell me what you need...”

“You’re doing just -- haaah -- fine on your own,” she assures him, back arching off the bed.

“I need encouragement.”

She lifts her head, and the look he gives her is, well -- trouble. “I’m not going to -- to --”

“Scream?” he offers, curling his fingers in a way that makes that seem like a more probably eventuality than it did a minute ago. “I don’t see why not.”

Her face is already flushed from -- from things, but she feels it go darker, chest practically burning up. “What if -- if -- Lata--”

She can’t even finish the thought. She knows far too well what would happen. It will be nothing short of a miracle if she ever manages to look him in the eye again.

“Lata is hours away,” he tells her, lifting his head so that honeyed gaze can bear down into hers, “and you’ll be living in a dorm room soon. So you should take advantage--” he grins as she gasps, his fingers touching her just where he needs him -- “of the fact.”

She means to argue the point, really she does, but he wraps and arm around her waist, lifting her upright into his lap, and -- well, she gives him exactly what he wants.

“Hnn-aah.” Knees jellied, thighs quivering still, Shirayuki tips back with a sigh, Obi’s mattress catching her better than she can her breath.

“Well.” His fingers shimmer with -- with her as he raises them, giving them a thoughtful glance. It’s all for show; she knows before he even moves that he’ll wrap his lips around them, sucking off her taste as if he can’t get enough.

It doesn’t stop her helpless whine when they disappear into his mouth, long lashes fluttering against his cheek. It’s not fair that he looks so good doing -- doing that. “Obi!”

“I liked it.”

For a long minute, she stares, halfway to saying, I know you did, but --

“Oh!” She laughs, shaking her head on his pillow. It smells like him, fresh and earthy. “The speech! Were you even listening?”

“Of course.” He looks almost affronted that she doubts it. “I obviously found it inspiring.”

He settles beside her, his front pressed to her side, and his -- his dick pokes her hip, as if it’s proving his point. Which, all right, it kind of is, but -- but that’s beside the point.

“I should have known better.” She rolls up onto her side, letting it dig into her belly, and she just catches the slight flutter of his eyelashes, the hitch in his breath. “It’s been three days. Expecting you to focus was a big ask.”

“I did focus.” His hips squirm, rubbing up against hers. Her panties are -- well, somewhere, and his fly is open for comfort and she -- she’s a little distracted. By his grin, that was the plan. “I’m still very focused.”

“I get it, I get it,” she laughs, leaning into his chest, closing the space between them with a kiss. It’s quick, affection rather than desire, but every kiss with Obi turns into something that lingers, that leaves her a little breathless when she pulls away. “But really, did you--?”

“I loved it, kid, really.” He leans his forehead against hers, rubbing noses with a grin. “I wasn’t just thinking about whether you had tights on or not.”

She lets her silence do the talking on that one. Mostly because if she said anything, it would come out less like, I appreciate your attraction, but I am more than just what’s between my legs, and more like, I plan what I wear depending on whether or not I think we’ll have time to fool around.

Shirayuki bites back a sigh. I would be nice if all her feminist ideology didn’t crumble the second he looked at her.

His smile softens, fingers reaching out to tuck some errant flyaways behind her ear. “You did great, kid. They’ll love it.”

She leans into his touch, just the littlest bit, and maybe --

Maybe the reason she doesn’t feel like she has to aggressively remind him to respect her is because he already does.

“I especially liked that part about me.”

She’s already flushed, but her cheeks scale up to a five-alarm fire. “It wasn’t about you! It was about--”

“I know, I know, everyone you met here.” He smooths a hand over the top of her head, fingers trailing down to tangle at her nape and draw her close. Lips brush right between her brows, smoothing away the crinkle there. “Don’t worry, kid, I know I’m not the only important person in your life.”

Obi’s right, of course -- it’s not like she just emerged fully-formed from the ether at the beginning of senior year, just to be the girl he liked. She has her grandparents, and the few friends she’s kept from her old school, Zen and Kiki and Mistuhide, Kihal, Ryuu and Higata and the rest of the mathletes --

Wow, that’s a lot more people than she even thought.

But even still, there’s something in the way he says it, not even sad or resigned but -- but so certain he’s not anywhere at the top of the list and fine with it, that makes her blurt out, “Well, I mean, it is mostly about you.”

The flat of his teeth presses against her skin, and she doesn’t need to look at him to know how immensely pleased she’s made him, not when his -- his dick twitches, catching the underside of her belly.

“Do you need to--” even after all this time, she still doesn’t know quite how to ask -- “handle that?”

His eyebrows dip in confusion, and she wriggles her hips, not subtle in the least.

A laugh huffs out of him, his forehead slipping from hers to bury itself in the crook of her neck. She feels him shaking against her, but it takes her a good long minute to realize it’s a -- a shake. A no.

“No. Well--” she feels his lips curl against her skin, which is just doing nothing for her concentration right now -- “eventually. But it can wait.”

She opens her mouth to protest -- it’s not fair that she makes him wait on top of everything else -- but he just says, “I like being with you like this. You know, after.”

A breath catches tight in her chest. She does know; there’s something nice about him being close as she comes down, as the tingle fades from her body and leaves a bone-deep relaxation behind. Sometimes, when she lays there, trying to catch herself against his shoulder, she thinks about how nice it might be for there to be nothing between them, for their touches to be skin-to-skin and for him to be breathless too --

He lifts her arm up and lets it drop, boneless, to the bed. “You get all floppy. It’s really fucking cute.”

He mouth pulls thin, giving him the most forbidding glare she can dredge up, the most scolding she can do in silence --

And he pulls back, taking it in with a smile that is just -- fond. Content. His palm cups the back of her head, and he draws her close, tucking her head under his chin. He’s so close, so silent, that she can hear his heart beat in his chest, hear the breath fill and empty his lungs.

He’s too good to her.

Her fingers curl against his chest, skin still slick beneath them, and she has to take a moment to calm herself, to think, because it’s just -- a lot. So much.

She’s never dated anyone before, not even at her old school, but she knows that this is different. Zen never made her chest feel tight like this, like she’s too small in a single body, like even skin is too much of a barrier between them. That sometimes, if she tried hard enough, she wouldn’t even need to speak to have him know what she was thinking.

It’s intense. More than she thought, and if he were any other boy --

Well, if he were any other boy, he would already be in the bathroom, finishing himself off. If he were any other boy, he would have told her she needs to stop being so shy about dicks if she likes rubbing up against them so much.

But he doesn’t. It doesn’t even seem to bother him, which just -- it has to be fake.

Not that she’s complaining. It’s only --

Sure, it’s just about sex now. But she can’t help but wonder about if something was wrong -- really wrong -- whether he’d tell her or just -- do this, until he couldn’t stand it anymore. She’s good at reading him now, but what about when they don’t see each other every day, when she can’t just look at him to tell if there’s a problem--?

“How are we going to make this work?” she asks his throat, pulse racing against her lips.

He jerks against her like she’s yanked his strings. “What do you mean?”

“When I’m at Lyrias and you’re here.” She pushes back, just in time to see the fear in his eyes fade to concern, fade to certainty. “What if it’s not enough? What if--?”

“I’m going to visit.” He cards his fingers through her hair, the blunt edges of his nails scraping down her scalp in a way that’s nearly as soothing as his voice. “Remember? Once every two weeks, and I’ll stay the whole weekend, if your roommate doesn’t mind. And we can skype as much as you want. And I promise I’ll text you as obnoxiously as I do now.”

“So every two minutes?” she teases, leaning her forehead against his lips.

She can feel his smile against her hairline. “Mm, no. Too long. How about every minute?”

“Obi--”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” He squeezes her close. “Every five.”

Her hands are trapped against his chest, but she’s not above giving a good pinch. Even still, he just laughs, batting her hands away.

“I’m serious, Obi! We see each other every day, and then we just..won’t.” She squirms, tucking herself more firmly under his chin. It’s hard enough to say this out loud, never mind look at him while she’s doing it. “What if...what if...”

What if you get bored of me? She would never insult him by saying it, by implying that between them, he would somehow be the weak link, but -- it’s all she can think about. Hours away, only seeing her every two weeks, and who knows what time she’ll have outside of her course work to give him, and what time he’ll have with school and a job to give her --

Obi’s hand smooths down her back, broad and warm, and she just -- breathes.

“Shirayuki,” he says, her name rumbling fondly under her ear. “Haven’t I told you? You’re the only one who does it for me.”

She means to laugh, but it gasps out like wounded honk. “You can’t just keep saying that.”

“Why not?” For once, he sounds almost frustrated. “It’s true.”

It’s the earnestness that hurts. He’s so sure, and yet -- yet --

She wiggles her hips against his, feeling only the sharp jut of his pelvis. “It doesn’t feel like I’m doing it for you.”

Obi stares at her for a long moment, and then a laugh huffs out of him, his cheeks pink over bronze.

“Well, not right now.” His fingers drag against her scalp, burying themselves in the hair at her nape. “We’re having a serious conversation, I need all that blood. But give me a few minutes...”

The invitation is implicit, and she want to take it -- she means to take it, but --

She shakes her head. “One day you’ll meet a girl who isn’t afraid of penises, and then--”

“I’ve met plenty of girl who were very enthusiastic about penises.” His eyes meet hers as their foreheads touch. “And I still only want you.”

She lets out a sigh, closing her eyes. It would be nice to be able to believe that. “Be serious.”

“About you? Always.” For a breath he just lays there, head pressed against hers, but it doesn’t last. He shifts, pulling back, tilting her chin up so that their eyes meet. “Listen, I get that you haven’t done this whole long distance thing before. I haven’t either. I mean, fuck, kid, I haven’t really done this whole dating thing at all. I’m sure I’ll fuck up somewhere, but it won’t be by thinking the grass is greener on the other side, believe me.”

Her palms press flat against his chest, his heart racing beneath the, “Obi, I didn’t mean to--”

“But if you’re worried about us not being to do other stuff--” he waggles his eyebrows, making crystal clear just what sort of other stuff he’s talking about -- “we can always do skype sex.”

She stares, wondering if she’s having a stroke. “We can what?”

“You know.” His lips twitch. “When you skype each other, and then you watch each other get off.”

“I...” She blinks. “At the same time?”

“I’m mean, I’m a little fuzzy on the details here, but yeah.” His hand smooths down her spine, resting heavy just above her butt. It takes superhuman effort not to squirm back, not to press into it. “That’s typically how these things go.”

“And that...” She licks her lips, but her mouth is already dry. “That would work for you?”

He stiffens under her hands, eyes pulsing wide. “What, seeing you touch yourself? Getting all wet for me?” His hand urges her closer, and she can feel him hard against her thigh. “Watch you get all flushed because you’re hot for me? Think about how it could be me getting you that way, how I’d touch you to make you come?”

To her complete humiliation, she whimpers.

“Yeah,” he breathes, gazes fixed her hers. “I think that would work for me just fine.”

“O-oh,” she squeak, face burning. “Oh.”

His lips curl as he looks at her, as he leans close and rumbles, “Wouldn’t that work for you? Watching me touch myself, knowing I’m hard because you look so incredible when you come?”

Her nails scrape against his chest, earning her a hiss that is -- is not helping with the thinking, here.

That -- that might be okay. Seeings a penis not in person, but through a screen. Not that it’s really helped with google, but -- if it was Obi’s, if it was because she --

“Yes.” He twitches hard against her, and she ducks her head, flushed. “I mean, yes, but ...”

“But..?” he hums, too amused.

“I just...” I only there was a way to say these things without actually having to say them, like Obi does. Some innuendo that could make the problem clear without being so -- so obvious. “I’m not very good at, um, being alone. Like that.”

“Oh, really?” The hardness is impossible to ignore now. “Well, we have an entire summer, kid. Plenty of time for practice sets.”

“What, like summer school for m-m---” she grits her teeth--- “touching myself?”

“Why not?” His grin stretched across her temple. “You seem like the sort of girl who likes to get hot for teacher---”

Duchess Prettymane ends that particular vein of conversation.

“What have we said about you being nicer to your friends?” he says, catching Tiny Frog before he can join the pile surrounding Obi’s head. “If that doesn’t float on the motion of your ocean, I could always just get you a...graduation gift.”

For a long moment, she’s only confused; after all, she’s already looked in to getting him one, and it’s not like she was expecting one from him, but it wasn’t out of the realm of --

She catches his grin, the heat in his eye. Oh. Oh. Graduation gift. The kind she would not be opening in front of Grandad and Nanna.

“Obi!”

“What?” His grin is far too attractive, this close. “It would be very thoughtful. I would think very, very hard about what kind you might like--”

“Kind?” she yelps. “I thought there were, you know, just...sizes.”

“Oh, kid.” He bends close, lips brushing over hers. “Can’t start you off with some big dragon dick. Gotta work you up to it.” His hand skims over her hip, leaving a searing trail where each finger touches, lifting her leg to wrap around his waist. “I was thinking of one of those little egg ones, the king that just sit here--”

She whines at his touch, hips bucking against his as two of his fingers brush just over her clit. She came only a few minutes ago, but she’s wet again, hands clutching at his biceps as he moves those fingers just so --

“That,” she gasps, nails digging into his skin. “That might be okay.”

His jaw drops, eyes blowing wide, and --

Well, she loses a few minutes.

“All right,” he huffs, rolling away from her, fingers still slick. “This is definitely becoming a…ah….pressing issue.”

Her heart squeeze in her chest, but when she looks at him, he only gestures to where – where he is hard against his boxers, to a point that looks nearly painful.

“Oh!” She sits up. “Right.”

He gives her a weak smile. “If you would excuse me…”

He brushes past her getting off the bed, and for a moment she nearly stops him, nearly tells him to stay and pull off those jeans, to let her see him for once –

But she just presses her lips together and calls out, “Have fun?”

Obi tosses her a mischievous grin over his shoulder. “Oh, don’t worry, Kid. I plan to.”

[sparxwrites]

I've noticed recently that I've become accustomed to capitalising words for Emphasis, both in the absence of italics and in tandem with them. As a language nerd, what does this suggest of language mutation going forward?

this isn’t language mutation! at least, not in the way i suspect you mean it. it’s more of a linguistic adaptation to the inherent limitations of text-based communication - which is a bit of a mouthful, and a lot to unpack, so, let’s start with the basics:

in spoken english, we have words and grammar and sentences, the same as we have with internet english. however, we also have facial expressions, and body language, and hand gestures - and most relevantly here something called prosidy, which internet english is lacking (at least in the traditional sense). prosidy is the changes in pitch and volume of your voice when speaking. this gives rise to stress and intonation in speech, which serves several purposes - one is distinguishing between words (ie. record the object, and record the action), another is conveying emotion, and another is providing emphasis.

the last one is the primary purpose of both italics and initial capitalisation in internet english. since we can’t have prosidy over the internet via pitch and volume, we’ve adopted other methods. 

words with the same spelling are usually disambiguated by context, so they’re not hugely relevant here, but there’s some interesting things going on with emotion and emphasis.

emotion is usually done with memes, emoticons, gifs, or other “verbal tags” - stuff like “/s” for sarcasm or “uwu” (which, interestingly, started off as a genuine expression of “i’m not mad at you!” and is now sarcastic and passive aggressive, so that’s a- lexical? possibly-lexical mutation there), or even acronyms like “tbh” and “lol” and “lmfao” which are now more often used to indicate the mood of a particular statement. for example: when was the last time you saw someone using lmfao to Actually Literally Mean “laughing my ass off”? now consider when the last time you saw someone using lmfao to mean “the previous statement is intended to be mildly humorous in a bleak and self-depreciating kind of way” was. think of the number of posts about “adults need to learn to text!” where people think their parents are angry because they ended a text in a full stop. think of all the wonderful variations on ellipses we have!! the way people use question marks as rhetorical devices, to indicate uncertainty in their statement, or to point out how obvious something is!! i love it. emotion tag-words are my favourite.

emphasis / stress is usually (or at least traditionally) done with italics in written english - it isn’t particularly a internet english thing, it’s been done by writers and comic book artists since well before the internet. this is part of what’s called prosodic stress in spoken english, and it’s used in a couple of different ways. aside from general the most relevant one here is to point out new information in a sentence (called focus in linguistics):

“However, it’s not enough to assume that turtles merely like the taste of pineapples. We must consider the possibility that turtles are deeply, sexually attracted to fruit.”

there’s also contrastive focus (a sub-type of focus, where the person you’re speaking to makes an assumption, and you’re contradicting / correcting them). wikipedia has some nice examples of how it’s often used both online and out loud:

I didn't take the test yesterday. (Somebody else did.)I didn't take the test yesterday. (I did not take it.)I didn't take the test yesterday. (I did something else with it.)I didn't take the test yesterday. (I took a different one.)I didn't take the test yesterday. (I took something else.)I didn't take the test yesterday. (I took it some other day.)

other things italics can do include indicating sarcasm (“Oh, of course, no one else has ever thought of this, because you’re so clever.”), and highlighting important/argument-relevant (“As I mentioned earlier: fish can feel love. This is just one reason amongst many, however, that fish-human marriage is undeniably ethically sound.”). i’m 90% sure that that latter one is probably also focus-related, but i don’t know enough about information structure generally to commit entirely to calling it focus - tbh, given how many different theories of focus there are, it may be focus under some theories, but not others (see also: that one theory on the wiki page where anything not given is focused, so if you’re specifically bringing up or reminding people of a relevant piece of information it’s probably not given and therefore focused). if the important / argument-relevant use is not focus-related, though, then it’s at least somehow related to information structure; perhaps italics are more generally useable to indicate something about information structure, without it specifically needing to be focus.

stress done with initial capitalisation, however, seems to be a little different - or at least, seems to occur in broader contexts than the one above. i suspect you could do an entire postgrad thesis on the similarities and differences between the two (and i also suspect that i don’t remember enough about syntax and phonology and information structure etc. to offer the best insight possible here), but let’s see if we can’t at least pick the differences apart a bit.

so! initial capitalisation can certainly be used in the same contexts as italics, for focusing new / relevant information and for contrastive focus. this evidenced by: (a) “omg, have u considered that turtles are Sexually Attracted To Fruit??” and “pls remember that Fish Can Feel Love” are both perfectly a-okay in internet english, and (b) by an edited version of the wikipedia examples:

I didn't take the test yesterday. (Somebody else did.)i Didn't take the test yesterday. (I did not take it.)i didn't Take the test yesterday. (I did something else with it.)i didn't take The test yesterday. (I took a different one.)i didn't take the Test yesterday. (I took something else.)i didn't take the test Yesterday. (I took it some other day.)

(initial capitalisation with “I” is always a little tricky (is it emphasis, or is it just normal capitalisation?), and in my expereince people tend to default to italics with it wherever possible for this reason. i’m also… unsure about how happy i am with the grammaticality (how “okay” a particular sentence is within a given language / dialect) of examples 4 & 5 (“The” and “Test”), but that might be because those two are a little unusual even with italics - “i didn’t take The Test today” looks much better, i think, and can mean both “i took a different one” and “i took something else”.)

however, it’s clear that initial capitalisation can occur in places where italicisation is either outright incorrect, or at least looks kind of weird:

[cute picture of a cat lying on its back, pulling a face, having knocked a plant pot off the table]

commenter A: “Why Do Cats Do These Things”

commenter B: “why do cats do these things”

commenter A’s statement is perfectly correct internet english; commenter B’s statement is just about interpretable, but quite clearly clumsy / not really acceptable in the opinion of most “native internet english speakers”. but why?? well, we’re clearly not focusing “do these things” (because it’s not really providing any information, it’s just sort of… pointing out that the cat in the picture is being weird and then asserting that this is prototypical cat behaviour. it’s trying to tap into a shared knowledge of “what cats do / are like” between “speaker” and reader), and though it’s somewhat humorous it’s not actually sarcastic, so italics are a no-go.

what commenter A is trying to do, however, is to indicate a specific usage / meaning of “do these things” via a specific “tone of voice”. commenter A is not just asking why cats behave specifically in this manner re: knocking pots off and pulling faces, they’re trying to indicate that they consider cats in general to act weirdly and look goofy; typing “why do cats do these things” would be mostly fine if you are indicating frustration / anger with a sudden plague of cats-knocking-off-plant-pots, but that’s not what commenter A is trying to communicate.

additionally, when i say “Why Do Cats Do These Things” out loud, there’s a specific tone of voice i use for it, that i suspect others do to - this kind of flat monotone, with a heavy weight on each word that’s not so much emphasis but a very careful over-pronunciation. it’s not quite emphasis, and definitely not focus-emphasis; it’s almost a comedy thing, or a joke; it’s drawing attention to a specific interpretation of this sentence that’s both humorous and typical within internet spaces; it’s indicating a kind of emotion (exasperation / affection / despair) more than anything.

some other examples of this, where capitalisation is a-okay but italics are somewhere between weird and entirely unacceptable:

“nah it’ll be fine, i’m Basically Immortal lol”

“getting run over would be Suboptimal”

“if word crashes and deletes this essay then, i swear to god, I’m Gonna Die”

“you’re a Terrible Human Being and i love it”

(if anyone can think of any examples where italics and capitalisation is okay, but are in the same style as the above, then let me know! or if people disagree with my analysis of what initial capitalisation sounds like out-loud. this sort of thing relies on native speaker judgements, usually, and although i am as close to a native internet english speaker as you’re gonna get, i’m only one person. other people may have other judgements.)

i suspect, from all of this, that the function of initial capitalisation is to indicate any kind of change in prosidy in the speaker’s voice (though primarily weird monotone), usually with an emphasis on a specific interpretation of the particular phrase that’s initially-capitalised. this is why it can be used for focus, and for sarcasm, and for more general emphasis the same way - but why it can also be used to represent a monotone (“I Would Prefer Not To”) in a way italics can’t, or to indicate that specific “you know what i’m talking about / i am referring to a concept we both share but that cannot be put into words” tone (“Why Are You Like This”), or that looping-up-and-down voice people use when they’re winding someone up (“I Am A Joy And A Delight, idk what you’re talking about :3ccc”).

italics can kind of be used for some of these, but only really as an extension of its function as an indicator of sarcasm - which means that italics are intelligible in that context, but just look weird, and like the person using them isn’t very fluent in internet english. that’s because initial caps don’t quite indicate sarcasm, though it occupies a similar teasing-dramatic tonal area; in some / most instances, initial caps seems to function similar to adding “lmfao” or “lol” onto the end, which suggests it’s also indicating a self-depreciating or bleak humour / drama to the sentence. initial caps seem to function, then, as a focus / emphasis device, but also as an emotion indicator, which is a sort of fascinating crossover of function - but very similarly to the way we see voice and prosidy being used for both focus / emphasis, and for conveying emotion.

so, you probably use italics + capitalisation in conjunction because you’re trying to convey two different things. for a sentence like “drinking three cups of coffee in a row is a terrible, awful, no good idea and oh my god Why Would You Do That”, the italics are conveying where you’re putting stress / emphasis in the sentence (on “oh my god why would you do that”). the initial capitalisation, however, is indicating that on top of emphasis, you’re saying “why would you do that” in a specifically unusual kind of prosidy, probably quite a flat and monotone one, and that it’s designed to be teasing / humorous.

i also suspect that italics + capitalisation can be used as a kind of “double emphasis”, or marking out an emphasised section within an already emphasised talking point. kind of the way bolding sometimes works?? (except the internet tends not to use bolding fsr, or only uses it for headings / as a way to highlight the most important sentences in a wall of information. it’s a structural-level organisational device, essentially.) so you can re-parse “it’s so important we feed cats and dogs different food, because cats are not dogs and have different dietary requirements!!!” as “[...], precisely because Cats Are Not Dogs and have different dietary requirements!!!”. in this instance, you’re emphasising that the reason for different treatment is that cats are not dogs and therefore have different dietary requirements, but also emphasising the fact in and of itself that cats are not dogs.

i also also suspect that, when we just need one form of emphasis and are choosing whether to use italics or initial capitalisation, we consider the context of our writing. in this “essay”, i’ve mostly used italics - they’re a little more “formal” as far as internet language goes (so, not very formal at all, but still more standard than initial caps), they’re more semantically accessible (i.e. if non-tumblr people find this essay, whereas they might be able to proactively work out what initial caps are intended to convey from context, they’ll probably intuitively understand the use of italics here), and they’re more visually accessible / they disrupt the visual flow of the text less. when i’m talking with friends (especially on platforms like skype and discord and tumblr messenger which, if they support italics at all, do so in a “non-intuitive” way, i.e. not using ctrl+i like word processing software does), in shorter / less formal settings, where the visual flow of the sentence is part of the meaning / emotion of the sentence in and of itself (how long are the sentences? do you use full stops? do you capitalise the beginnings of sentences? do you send each sentence as a new message? on a new line? how many dots do you use for ellipses? keysmashes? ?!??!??!?!?!?!!!! ?), i tend to use initial caps.

so tl;dr: italics seem to be primarily used to indicate focus - you’re pointing out a new or specifically relevant piece of information, or you’re correcting / denying a piece of information that your conversational partner has provided (or perhaps being sarcastic). initial capitalisation can Also/also be used for this purpose, but is additionally used to represent Any/any kind of change in prosidy that would occur if you spoke the sentence aloud (since we also mess about with intonation for other reasons beside focus). ...i sincerely hope someone has done / is doing / will do a thesis on this bc honestly this probably has some fascinating implications for information structure or prosidy or Something/something tbh.

regarding the “mutations” comment: these sorts of internet english quirks are not language mutations, per se, because we already have features for distinguishing this kind of thing in spoken english - and also because a lot of this stuff is what we call paralinguistic phenomena, which means that sarcasm and emphasis etc. communicate something, but it’s not actually strictly part of the language itself. it just adds an extra layer of meaning on top of the stuff being conveyed by the actual words.

instead, they’re adaptations of our orthographic (writing) system to cope with the increasing demands of written/internet english to convey these sorts of things. online, we don’t have people’s prosidy and their body language / expressions to read, so we need altered orthography or other visual indicators to ensure that people correctly understand the intent and mood behind your communication, not just the raw word-content of it. that’s why internet english has developed these quirks. essentially: our communication has always had these paralinguistic phenomena, these ways to convey emotion and emphasis; we’re just finding different ways of expressing them in response to environmental restrictions, i.e. the fact we’re all increasingly communicating via text on a regular, intensive basis. historically, we’ve primarily communicated verbally, so it’s not developed due to lack of need - but the internet has has created a heavily-used, text-primary environment, so now we do need it, and we’re collaboratively creating it as a result because humans (especially young humans) are excellent language innovators. it’s pretty neat!!

(as an interesting aside, i suspect that there’s also an element of in-grouping going on here. people want to mark out the community belong to, the people they’ve chosen as their “tribe” - irl, we do this via slang, and accents, and sometimes through certain types of wordplay or forms of prosidy / gesture etc. obviously, online, we can have slang (think about how often you’ve seen someone on tumblr say “top kek”, versus how ubiquitous that phrase is on reddit), but accents are a little harder. so we instead develop different ways of typing, different ways we use italics or capitalisation or emotes. some of this depends on platform constraints - if your community’s site doesn’t allow bold/italics, or automatically converts emotes into weird yellow smileys, you’re gonna have to develop workarounds for that - but some of it is us going “these are my people, and i can tell because we talk differently, and we’re Not Like You People”. this is why it can sometimes be linguistically disorienting going onto a different platform; i often find posters’ “tone” on reddit hard to read, because they seem to signal emotion differently to on tumblr!!

this may, perhaps, also be a reason why we’ve ended up with both capitalisation and italics - if one social group developed italics as emphasis, and a second social group (perhaps on a platform without capacity for italics) developed capitalisation as emphasis, and then the two groups merged or interacted, you’re gonna get this linguistic transference where the groups adopt one another’s styles without dropping their own original style. and then- voila! both italics and capitalisation for emphasis. but because language often tends towards getting rid of redundancy, the two styles specified out into having slightly different connotations / occuring in slightly different pragmatic environments. or, perhaps, the capitalisation style was always broader than italics, and there’s not been any change yet to reduce redundancy, but there will be in the future. who knows!)

(as a second interesting aside, all of this is probably partly why autistic people often report online friendships being easier / report preferring textual communication to face-to-face. whereas expressions and prosidy can be exceptionally difficult to learn to read if they’re not instinctual - think of the infinite variations of muscle contraction and relaxation in the face! the number of different pitches and volumes and patterns we can make with our voice! they’re very difficult to categorise because they overlap a lot and tend to gradient into one another - these kinds of “emotional tags” are usually quite easy and clear-cut. “/s” indicates sarcasm every time it is used, entirely unambiguously. stuff like “lol” or “tbh” are a little more ambiguous, but even then, they have a more limited set of emotional contexts that they’re used in than, say, the corners of your lips moving upwards. gifs and memes are even better; if they don’t outright say what they mean on the gif or in the meme, there’s entire websites dedicated to cataloguing and explaining memes should you be unclear of the usage.

additionally, internet environments can be a little more forgiving wrt people not picking up on tone, or using an incorrect / weird tone, when conversing; it’s hard to display tone online, and even allistic people (especially internet newbies or older people) struggle with it, so tonal faux pas or misunderstandings are a little more expected (and therefore forgiven) than irl.)

[metalandmagi]

August Media Madness

Well, August may have sucked for me personally, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t keep track of all the media I consumed this month! And spoiler alert, I watched a lot of movies involving adorable talking bears. Although, I have a feeling that as soon as the fall television premieres start, I’ll be watching a lot less movies.

July’s media

Movies!

Dear Evan Hansen

Thank you bootlegs. This isn’t a movie, but I didn’t want to make a separate category for plays when I’ve only seen one this month. Anyway, if you haven’t heard of it, Dear Evan Hansen involves an incredibly anxious teenage boy who is tasked by his therapist to write motivational letters to himself. Unfortunately, Connor Murphy, an angsty boy who goes to Evan’s school sees one of the letters, takes it, and promptly decides to kill himself, with the letter still on his person. Everyone ends up thinking he and Evan were friends and that this letter was a suicide note that Connor wrote to Evan...and a beautiful fake gay relationship friendship was born. Call me basic as hell, but I’ve watched this show twice now, and listened to the soundtrack more times than I can count, and it’s turning into my favorite musical. There are so many important messages in it, and it takes you on a roller coaster of emotions. Every character does good and bad things, and no one is blameless or innocent...except maybe Zoe Murphy. If anything just listen to the soundtrack. 10/10

Night on the Galactic Railroad

Cats...on a mystical train...This seems like the kind of movie they would show you in film school. Very dull plot and characters with the themes being the main takeaway. What even is the plot of this movie? Darker, grittier, furry version of the Polar Express? Incredibly boring slightly more religious version of Over the Garden Wall? I just kept watching it because the main character looks like a cat version of Kagayama Tobio in middle school...cat-gayama. 4/10

Paddington

An adorable bear from South America travels to London and gets into all sorts of trouble with an English family. It’s very charming and sweet, and the aesthetic in this movie is on point, like Wes Anderson directed a children’s movie. This is one of those movies you hear about where everyone loves it, and you think it can’t possibly be that good, but then you watch it and you were wrong! So wrong! 10/10

Paddington 2

Naturally. This time an adorable South American bear goes to prison, and his family tries to clear his name. Again, A+ aesthetic and imagery, but I think I preferred the plot of the first movie a little more because everyone was all together. 9/10

Christopher Robin

Do you like Winnie the Pooh? Do you like jaded adults finding happiness in their lives again? Do you think the movie Hook had a good premise but was extremely long and kinda boring and could have been a better movie with a little tweaking? Well this is the movie for you! Christopher Robin has grown into an overworked adult, and his old friend Winnie the Pooh inadvertently helps him reconnect with his wife and daughter (and also his inner child) just by being the sweet, clumsy, dry humored bear we all know and love. I was so skeptical of this movie at first, and I was absolutely blown away by how funny and meaningful it was. 100/10

The Road to El Dorado

Two lovable Spanish con men named Miguel and Tulio are accidentally swept away on a journey to the fabled city of El Dorado, where everything is made of gold. Once they reach the city, the locals believe they’re gods due to an (un)fortunate series of coincidences, and the con men try to keep up the charade with the help of the best character in the movie, Chel (who I’m pretty sure caused an entire generation of lesbians’ sexual awakening). This is one of my favorite animated movies of all time and one of the reasons I wish Dreamworks would go back to their 2D animation days, where the visuals and music were just as stunning as 3D movies are now. This movie is a classic, and I desperately want a sequel! 10/10

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before

When Lara Jean thinks it’s a good idea to write 5 secret love letters to 5 boys that she’s had crushes on over the years, everything is fine until her little sister mails the letters to all the boys (because even a 6th grader knows Lara Jean is lonely and emotionally stunted as fuck). This is a Netflix original movie that was adapted from the book by Jenny Han...which I haven’t read, but now I really want to. Overall, this was super cute, but I wasn’t really crazy about the boys. They weren’t horrible people or anything, and they never pressured Lara Jean or made fun of her for being “innocent”, but they were just kind of bland. I’m much more interested in the other boys we didn’t see in the movie! But the family relationships were so heartfelt, Lara Jean’s fashion sense is AMAZING, and the acting/casting was awesome. 8/10

Summer Wars

I...don’t even know how to describe the plot of this one. A teenage boy named Kenji goes on a country holiday and pretends to date an acquaintance of his in order to impress her enormous family...but it’s really about an AI that becomes sentient and wants to mess up the world through this universal internet program called OZ that’s kind of like a mashup of Facebook and Second Life...but actually no it’s about family sticking together and using a Japanese card game to save the world…but apparently it’s got the same plot as the Digimon movie because they’re both directed by Mamoru Hosoda. Yeah...

Guys, I have a confession to make...this has always been my favorite Mamoru Hosoda movie. Everyone falls all over themselves saying Wolf Children is the best Mamoru Hosoda movie, and that’s great for them but it doesn’t even come in second for me. Summer Wars means a lot more to me personally because I come from a big extended family, and when I first saw this movie, I was blown away by how accurate the family dynamic was. There are so many characters, but everyone has their own personality. Not to mention the music makes the summer atmosphere so on point. And I’m not going to lie...I bawled like a fucking baby the first time I saw this movie. So anyway, I like Summer Wars more than Wolf Children, thanks for coming to my TED talk. 10/10

Atlantis: The Lost Empire

Unappreciated researcher Milo Thatch goes on an expedition to find the lost city of Atlantis.

Okay, there are two kinds of Disney fans in this world: Treasure Planet fans, and Atlantis fans. And I will support Treasure Planet as the best underrated vaguely steampunk inspired Disney movie until you can pry my 15 year old dvd copy away from my cold dead hands. But Atlantis is pretty good too. I could write essays comparing the two and why both of them should be successful but weren’t. My main problem with it is that the characters are great, but I feel like we don’t see enough of them, and as a kid a lot of the humor went by so fast that I completely missed it. Also the glowing eyes and spirits taking over the Atlantian princess’s body freaked me the fuck out as a child. NEVERTHELESS! This really is a great movie, with extremely well developed lore and well designed characters that chills me to this day. 8/10

Deadpool 2

The merc with a mouth is back, and man there’s so much going on in this movie I won’t even try to explain the plot. I literally had to go back and add this in because I was so into this movie when I was watching it that I forgot to write it down! Even though I really liked this sequel, I think I liked the first one better, just based on how much I laughed. There was so much going on plot wise, but it really seemed to work for this movie. There were also a lot of great new characters (Domino is my favorite character of the franchise now), but since there was so much stuff going on, a lot of jokes and plot lines were sort of hit and miss. Anyway, I’m sure everyone’s seen this one by now but just in case, I highly recommend it. 9/10

Books!

The Adventure Zone Graphic Novel: Here There be Gerblins by Clint McElroy (technically all the McElboys) and Carey Pietsch

Yeah yeah, for anyone who doesn’t know I’m Adventure Zone trash okay. TAZ is a DnD podcast where 3 brothers and their father create one of the most famous campaigns in history involving three idiot adventurers going on a quest to find a missing person and getting sucked into a much larger grand plan to protect the world. This graphic novel is a visualization of the first arc. I don’t even really like Here There be Gerblins all that much, and yet here I am. Oh well, the art was amazing, and of course I already knew the story. But it was kind of hilarious to see the name changes they had to make to some of the characters and places. I was a little disappointed that the ending was so rushed, and we don’t really spend time around the moon base before The Director is in our face changing the Lunar Interlude parts but whatever. 10 dead gerblins/10

The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken

When a disease that only affects children kills off nearly all the kids on the planet, the survivors are left with supernatural powers and are taken away to concentration camps in order to “protect” the public. I’ve been wanting to read this for a long time, and since the movie just came out I thought it was the perfect time. This is one of those books that some people adore and some people hate. I thought it was just okay. For everything that I didn’t like, there was something to make up for it. Personally, I felt that Bracken focused on the wrong part of the story. Everything takes place years after this disease has come, and I think it would have been more interesting to see everything from the children’s points of view when this disease was first starting. I would focus on each different character as a child and how they wound up in their respective camps. Oh well, there’s way too many pros and cons  that I could delve into, but you like the YA dystopian genre then I say go for it. I didn’t like it enough to read the other two books (not yet anyway). 7/10

TV Shows!

Camp Camp

You know how there are summer camps that specialize in science, or acting, or space, or whatever? Yeah Camp Camp is about a summer camp that throws literally everything you can think of into one summer camp. If you don’t believe me, just listen to the theme song. Seriously though this is one of the best shows I’ve watched all year, but boy howdy this is not one for young children. It’s like Gravity Falls and Rick and Morty had a baby! Anyway, the characters are both surprising and hilarious. David the camp counselor (voiced by Miles Luna) is genuinely likable when you think he’d be the most annoying person on the planet, and the kids are so accurate it’s scary. Also Yuri Lowenthal is in it. And Griffin McElroy has a recurring role where he plays A GHOST! I’ve never been into Rooster Teeth stuff, but they have a winner with this one. 10/10

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

After her husband leaves her, Midge Maisel gets super drunk, goes on stage, and gives a hilarious rant about her relationship at a small comedy/talent club and somehow gets sucked into becoming a rising comedian as a woman in the 1950s. It’s good. Great acting pretty funny, but Midge and her agent/manager Susie are the only likable characters. Everyone else just kind of...sucks 8/10

Voltron Season 7 (spoilers)

Okay, I know everyone had mixed feelings about this season, but I did come out liking a lot of it. It had a lot of flaws (I really thought it would be Shiro’s season, and man was I wrong), but this is the sort of thing we can’t really judge until the last episode of the series is finished. I like to think of the positives: the action was amazing as usual, HUNK IS GETTING MORE AND MORE DEVELOPMENT EVERY SEASON, I refuse to believe the team introduced Adam just to have him killed off immediately so he’s still alive in my mind, we get to see everyone’s reunions with their families, the lost in space episode was cool, and say what you want about the game show episode, but I loved it! There were a lot of good things so it was easier for me to look past the...not so great aspects of the season. 7/10

Galavant

A musical comedy mini series involving a renowned medieval hero named Galavant on a quest to rescue his ex girlfriend from her “evil” husband King Richard. But maybe she doesn’t want to be rescued. Well, that’s just the first season. It’s best to go in knowing as little as possible. I remember liking it when it first came out, and it’s still pretty cute...but sometimes I feel like it’s trying too hard. A lot of the music isn’t really...memorable, but the characters are likable so it’s still worth the watch. 8/10

Disenchantment

Speaking of medieval comedies...Princess Bean doesn’t want to get married, mystical elf Elfo doesn’t want to live in an enchanted forest where everyone is happy all the time, and Bean’s personal demon Luci just wants to watch people suffer. Honestly, I wasn’t very into this show at first, but something compelled me to just keep watching, and by the end I was totally into it! This is one of those shows where you think there isn’t going to be a plot, but then the last few episodes come up and smack you in the face! 7.5/10

Round Planet

A documentary parody...mockumentary...satire...That’s really not a great way to describe it. It’s a nature documentary with funny commentary. I like nature shots and animals so I liked it, but there’s a lot of tangents and running jokes and British references that sometimes don’t land. Oh well, if you like unconventional documentaries, just watch it. 8/10

Honorable Mentions

DnDnD: I don’t think I’ve ever talked about this podcast before, but there’s a DnD podcast made by Practical Folks (aka the Drunk Disney youtube channel). It’s pretty good! I want an Adventure Zone crossover now!

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Every time I think I’m out, it pulls me back in. I finally got the DLC and spent most of this month playing this freaking game AGAIN!

The Heathers soundtrack: I finally listened to the Heathers musical soundtrack...and I didn’t love it. There are some good songs in it, but overall I’m unimpressed. And I never could really get into the plot, I’ve always thought it was really weird and over dramatic.

Legendary by Stephanie Garber: I’m about halfway through this book, which is the second in the Caraval series. And it’s pretty good! More on that next month.

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: An Annual Compendium of Black Photography that Was a Revolutionary Act

Anthony Barboza, “1st Black Photog. Annual, Left to Right: Beuford Smith, Joe Crawford, Ray Francis” (1973) gelatin silver print; sheet: 8 × 9 5/8 in., image: 4 3/4 × 7 1/16 in. (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund © Anthony Barboza Photo)

RICHMOND — In 1973, a small band of black artists published a book that changed the history of photography in America. The Black Photographers Annual [BPA], Volume I, presented the work of nearly 50 distinguished African-American photographers, past and present. It was a revolutionary act. The worlds of art and photojournalism had largely ignored black photographers, despite the thousands of important images they had made ever since daguerreotypist Jules Lion opened his New Orleans studio in 1840. The first volume of the BPA and the three that followed over the next seven years showcased the work of scores of contemporary black photographers and brought the history of their predecessors to the fore.

All of the BPA photographers were part of what Leigh Raiford calls photography’s “critical black consciousness.” For a century and a half, African-American photographers had been creating a counternarrative of style and purpose that challenged conventional ideas about what photographs could look like and what work they could do in the world. Frederick Douglass, writing in the mid-nineteenth century, was the first to identify the ways in which photography’s black consciousness challenged racism and other forms of inequality. He believed that photographers, like poets, were prophets of justice, who saw “what ought to be by their reflections of what is, and endeavor[ed] to remove the contradiction.” The BPA compellingly illustrated the extent to which standard histories of American photography, as well as exhibitions in galleries and museums, had evaded the challenge of this critical consciousness.

Installation view of A Commitment To The Community: The Black Photographers Annual, Volume I (photo by David Stover © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)

The BPA‘s arrival marked a pivotal moment in American cultural history. In its pages, established artists, such as Roy DeCarava, rubbed shoulders with those like Dawoud Bey, who were just emerging. Toni Morrison and James Baldwin were among the writers who contributed essays assessing the place of African-American photography in American society. The annuals solidified the sense of community that had long been building among black photographers. At the same time they inspired new generations of African-American artists, such as Carrie Mae Weems, to extend the work of their elders. Scholars and curators, among whom Deborah Willis is only one of the most prominent, found fresh motivation to deepen our understanding of African-American photographers and their work. Yet BPA‘s short lifespan and the rarity of its surviving issues allowed it to fall into obscurity.

A Commitment to the Community: The Black Photographers Annual, Volume I, at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, is both a celebration of the annual and an act of historical recovery. The first in a series of four back-to-back exhibitions (each devoted to one volume of the BPA), it has two parts: a museum installation of photographs by artists who were included in Volume 1 and a digitized collection of all four volumes freely accessible online. The installation draws on the VMFA’s large and growing holdings in African-American photography. The digitization of the annuals makes them available to anyone with a computer and an internet connection. Because the full run of the annuals is hard to find — Volumes 2 and 3 are held by no more than 15 libraries worldwide, and Volume 4 in only three — the digital versions constitute tools that scholars and the public can use to change how the story of American photography is told.

The exhibition draws its title from Toni Morrison’s assertion, in her foreword to Volume 1, that the annuals were “conceived as a commitment to the community of Black artists.” Here she alludes to the energy and sense of mission that the editors drew from the Black Arts Movement and black cultural nationalism of the 1960s and ‘70s. The BPA reflected the spirit of “Do for Self,” a common slogan of the era.

Anthony Barboza, “Shawn Walker, 1st. Black Photo Annual” (1973) gelatin silver print (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund © Anthony Barboza)

Most members of the editorial group were current or former members of Kamoinge (“those who work together” in the Kikuyu language), an artists’ collective that New York-based black photographers founded in 1963. Its aims were both aesthetic and broadly political. One “essential purpose,” as founding member Louis Draper once put it, was to challenge “one another to higher photographic attainment … in the face of a largely hostile and at best indifferent photographic community.” At the same time, members confronted an American visual culture that often employed demeaning or patronizing racial stereotypes in its depiction of African Americans. Kamoinge’s members believed that their images offered a more complex and truthful portrait of black Americans and, in Draper’s words, depicted “our lives as only we can.” Kamoinge’s aesthetic and political concerns were mutually reinforcing.

Kamoinge’s claim that black photographers could see black people more clearly than photographers who were outsiders was well founded. Black photographers had not absorbed the racist ideologies that inevitably shaped the ways that other ethnicities imagined and pictured black people. Black photographers also understood black culture implicitly: getting the jokes, recognizing the body language, hearing the words that were left unspoken. Most importantly, they lived with the burdens and pleasures of moving through America in a black body, and they put this knowledge on film. As a result, their photographs defy conventional representations of black people. In the annuals, none of the hundreds of portraits of black people is meant to represent the race or “the Negro Problem.” Lazy, lying, clownish, and criminal black people are nowhere to be seen. Well-meaning clichés, such as patient victims and righteous heroes, are absent as well.

Anthony Barboza, “Lou Draper, 1st Annual Black Photo Annual” (1973) gelatin silver print; (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund © Anthony Barboza Photo)

The VMFA’s installation of 20 photographs by seven photographers, all of whom were represented in Volume 1, reflects the diversity of work in the annual, even though space permits only a fraction of the photographers in the volume to be represented.

Two photographs by Roy DeCarava, the best known of the photographers whose work appears in the first volume, are at the center of the installation. A generation older than the photographers who edited the annuals, and a winner of a Guggenheim fellowship for photography, DeCarava was both a mentor and role model to many of them. He had earned their respect as much by his insistence on speaking out against the racism that he encountered in the art world as by the success he had achieved within it. Although the photographs in the installation were not published in the annual, they are examples of the work that inspired younger photographers. For instance, “David,” an informal portrait from 1952 of a small black boy, shows him leaning against a traffic signal post on a New York street corner. On what appears to be a hot summer’s day his face glistens with sweat, and he seems to scowl (perhaps at the sun shining into his eyes). He is aware of the photographer, regarding him calmly. He seems to be taking the measure of the viewer as well. In many ways, the image is an example of classic New York street photography, sharing the basics of style and subject matter with photographers such as Helen Levitt and Harold Feinstein. In the context of the exhibition and DeCarava’s body of work, however, the black boy’s steady gaze seems to challenge the viewer to see him as an individual and not a racial type.

2015.272; Louis Draper, “Billy” (before 1974); gelatin silver print; Image: 9 1/2 × 13 1/8 in. (© The Louis H. Draper Preservation Trust)

The young man in Louis Draper’s “Billy” (before 1974) might almost be an older David. He stands in the middle of a city street, wearing clothes that suggest it is again summer. The pavement is wet, perhaps from an open fire hydrant. Billy’s expression is hard to read, but his level gaze asks the photographer and, by extension, the viewer to see him as an equal. Beuford Smith’s portrait of a weary man, “Lower East Side,” (1969) also shows traces of DeCarava’s influence. The man’s face is hidden, but his battered fedora, clasped hands, and cane give viewers a sense of his mood and circumstances. The photograph’s dark tonalities resonate with much of DeCarava’s work, as does its embrace of ambiguity.

Beuford Smith, “Lower East Side” (1969) vintage gelatin silver print, 9¼”H x 6⅛”W, sheet, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond. Aldine S. Hartman Endowment Fund (photo by Travis Fullerton © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)

However, DeCarava was no Svengali. Younger photographers revered him but nevertheless found their own paths. “Boy and H” (1961) is an example of Draper’s career-long romance with the surrealism of city life and the geometric patterns that light and shadow imprint on film. A male figure, his frame twisted into a crude “S,” crosses in front of the concrete wall of a handball court on which someone has painted an enigmatic “H.” Similarly, Anthony Barboza’s “NYC Self-Portrait,” (ca. 1970–1979) shows the photographer at play, delighting in the patterns he creates with his body, the walls of an apartment, and the early morning light.

Louis Draper, “Boy and H” (196) gelatin silver print; Sheet: 10 15/16 × 13 15/16 in. Image: 8 3/8 × 12 11/16 in. Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

A Commitment to the Community turns decisively toward the politics of racial representation with Draper’s portrait of Fannie Lou Hamer, a central figure in the struggle for black voting rights in Mississippi during the 1960s. He depicts her in ways that defy the too-easy readings that stereotypes encourage. Hamer’s face is seen in close-up, emerging out of darkness, the image’s framing emphasizing the deeply sculpted contours of the features indicative of her African ancestry. She looks directly into the camera’s lens, her expression suggesting the strength and serenity of a woman who had confronted the Ku Klux Klan and the State of Mississippi and won.

Louis Draper, “Fannie Lou Hamer, Mississippi” (1971) gelatin silver print, sheet: 13⅞”H x 10 15/16″W image: 9″H x 6⅛”W (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; National Endowment for the Arts Fund for American Art, photo by Travis Fullerton)

Like Draper’s photograph of Hamer, Ming Smith’s portrait of two anonymous, middle-aged black women takes part in the collective effort to visually reimagine black people. Smith was one of several female photographers included in the annual, but the only one who is represented in the installation. The women, especially the central figure, look into the camera’s lens with the same calm self-possession as Hamer. Elegantly attired, they seem to be dressed for church, as Ming’s title, “Amen Corner Sisters,” (ca. 1976) confirms. Wearing their hats like crowns, they hold themselves with the bearing of a queen and her lady-in-waiting, an impression that the word “Regal,” seen on a building across the street behind them, reinforces.

Ming Smith, “Amen Corner Sisters, Harlem, NY” (printed ca. 1976) gelatin silver print (Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York)

Racial politics are front and center in Leroy Henderson’s portrait of Rosa Parks. He shows her admiring a poster of Malcolm X that bears the legend “By Any Means Necessary,” a reference to his dictum that no strategy should be ruled out in the African-American freedom struggle. Parks, whose refusal to move to the back of a transit bus to accommodate a white passenger was the catalyst for the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott of 1955–56, became an exemplar of principled non-violence in the movement for racial justice. Yet, in this photograph, she admires a fallen black nationalist hero who refused to rule out armed struggle. Henderson is not suggesting that Parks was ready to pick up a gun. Instead his photograph is a succinct comment on ways in which the perceived tensions within the African American freedom struggle were often more ostensible than real.

LeRoy Henderson, “Mrs. Rosa Parks at the Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana in 1972” (1972) gelatin silver print. (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund © LeRoy Henderson)

Any full reckoning with the BPA requires an examination of the books themselves, something that the digital versions now allow anyone to do. The online portion of the exhibition reproduces each of the annuals page for page, capturing virtually all of the clarity and tonal richness of the original photographs. The texts, like the images, can be enlarged, making them easily readable. Still, the digital annuals cannot, of course, capture the experience of holding the physical books in one’s hands. Large, thick, and almost square in shape, they have a physical heft that mirrored their cultural significance.

Each of the 118 photographs in Volume 1 is given a page to itself. Broad white borders surrounded the images, underscoring the artistic ambitions of the enterprise. The volume was divided into three parts: introductory essays, by Morrison and Clayton Riley, a middle section in which several dozen photographers were represented by one or two photographs each, and finally, 14 individual portfolios of four to seven images. All of the annuals followed this format, with only minor variations.

Anthony Barboza, “Self Portrait NYC” (1970-1979); silver gelatin print; sheet: 10 15/16 × 13 15/16 in., image: 6 × 9 in. (Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond © Anthony Barboza Photo)

Volume 1, like the other annuals, shows photographers exploring the nature of photography as an art form while simultaneously engaging in the struggle over racial representation. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of black photography’s critical consciousness has been the refusal to accept that art and political engagement are somehow at odds. The novelist John A. Williams, who wrote the introduction to Volume 4, sensed this dynamic, arguing that the photographs in the annuals were both “personal statements” and “documentation.” “The two,” he insisted, were “not by any means incompatible.”

The BPA‘s photographers confronted racism in American visual culture, in part, through portraiture. Volume 1, for instance, opens with photographs by Morris Rogers of a young man and a girl, each regarding the camera and the viewer with the serene composure of people who understand their position within American society and are not afraid to challenge it. There are many others like them. The calm, self-confident gaze was almost a house style, and it featured as much in the annual’s rare celebrity portraits as in images of ordinary people.

The BPA’s initial exploration of the history of African-American photography was a portfolio of seven photographs by the portrait photographer James Van Der Zee, who was then in his 80s. He had opened his first studio in Harlem in 1916 and, over a long career, had made exquisite portraits of tens of thousands of now anonymous African Americans, as well as black notables — from Marcus Garvey to Jean-Michel Basquiat. Yet he was unknown outside of the black community until his work formed the centerpiece of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s controversial 1969 exhibition, Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 1900–1968.

Among the images in Van Der Zee’s portfolio, all from before World War II, are a formal portrait of an affluent, middle-aged woman sitting in a sumptuously appointed drawing room, and a genteel, nude young woman illuminated by the soft glow of a mock fireplace. The portfolio also includes Van Der Zee’s best known photograph: a portrait of a stylish couple attired in expensive raccoon fur coats, posing on a Harlem street with an ornate 1932 Cadillac roadster. The man fills the passenger’s seat; the woman stands at his shoulder beside the roadster’s open door. An ostentatious display of wealth like this could easily of gotten them lynched in the South. And that is perhaps one of points that the portrait was designed to make. It can be read as an act of resistance, a pointed rejoinder to a dominant culture that believed that no black person deserved such fine things.

Street photography, which was then in its heyday as a form of art photography, was as prominent in the annuals as portraiture. Many of the street photographers in Volume 1 developed styles that diverged from DeCarava’s lyrical realism. The images in Herbert Randall’s portfolio, for all of their urban grit, have a dream-like quality that sometimes incorporates Christian iconography, lending them an aura of spirituality. Ming Smith’s and Anthony Barboza’s portfolios show street photographers who are as concerned with line, shape, and light as they are with people and places. These images, at times, cross into abstraction.

Ming Smith, “Untitled, Harlem, NY” (ca. 1973) gelatin silver print; (Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond)

Each of the three subsequent volumes contained similarly extraordinary work. In Volume 2, published in 1974, Shawn Walker’s image of a child trick-or-treating, while costumed as a ghost, is deeply unsettling. Photographed at night on an unlit and seemingly deserted street, the white sheets that form the child’s costume are illuminated only by the burst of Walker’s flash. Decontextualized by the darkness that envelops them, the sheets resemble the robes of the Ku Klux Klan.

In the same volume, a portfolio of ten photographs by Prentice H. Polk continues the BPA’s work of historical reclamation. Polk was little known outside of Tuskegee, Alabama, where he had maintained a studio since 1927, while teaching at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University). All but one of the photographs in the portfolio are portraits of elderly African-American women and men in settings that suggest rural poverty. Finely crafted and evocative of a disappearing time and place, they have more in common with the sympathetic character studies that white photographers, such as Doris Ulmann, made of African Americans than with the portraits of urban sophisticates created by Polk’s contemporaries, such as Van Der Zee. Yet the BPA’s editors knew that black viewers did not see “characters” in these portraits. They saw family.

Volume 3, which appeared in 1976, opens with a poem by Gordon Parks, whose career as a photographer, writer, and filmmaker had made him a celebrity. Echoing the ethos of the black arts movement, he praises African-American artists by asking rhetorically, “Who best to record us but you … who best to measure our height — but you?” In the introduction that follows, Baldwin calls the BPA “a testimony,” which “like all truthful witnessing … is beautiful and frightening, devastating and ennobling.”

A portfolio of five portraits of John Coltrane by Roy DeCarava brings together two of the most powerful creative forces of the mid-twentieth century. As with Coltrane’s music, this is art that asks for its audience’s undivided attention. DeCarava was a famously dark printer, who was known to hide significant details in deep shadow. And his penchant for slow shutter speeds in dimly lit nightclubs often lead to blurred images. The portraits require a willingness to abandon preconceptions of what a photograph should look like and embrace a singular creative vision.

Louis Draper, “Draper Shadow Self Portrait, A” (no date) gelatin silver print, sheet: 8 × 10 in. Image: 6 1/2 × 9 1/2 in. (Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond)

Volume 4, from 1980, was the last of the annuals. It is also the slimmest volume, containing the work of two-thirds as many photographers as the other three, suggesting that financial problems may have contributed to the BPA‘s demise. Nevertheless, the portfolios are especially strong. They include the work of Hamilton S. Smith, a gifted amateur photographer whose carefully crafted, if conventional, snapshots depict scenes from middle-class black life in Boston at the turn of the twentieth century, and of Dawoud Bey, who was at the beginning of what has proven to be an illustrious career. Bey’s portfolio is comprised of five images from Harlem, USA, his first significant body of work. Although the images lack the intimacy that is associated with his later photography, they nevertheless capture an insider’s view of Harlem, showing the dignity and self-respect that was as much a part of the community as were poverty and segregation.

Although plans were afoot to publish a fifth volume of the BPA, it never appeared. The cessation of publication, combined with the fire that destroyed most copies of Volume 4, allowed the annuals to fade from view. A Commitment to the Community, especially its online component, is an opportunity to reassess the BPA’s place in American cultural history. In addition to being platforms for contemporary black photography, the annuals were an early salvo in the battle to make the history of photography more inclusive and therefore more accurate. They demonstrated that narratives which failed to come to grips with African-American photography and its critical consciousness were woefully inadequate. Four decades after their publication, the annuals themselves have become essential resources for writing better histories.

The BPA remains the most significant collective effort to answer the question that Williams asked in his introduction to Volume 4: “What is it that Black photographers see when they take photographs of Black people?” There was no single answer. The response instead was a multi-layered and nuanced portrait of a people. It was an aesthetic triumph, but it was not art for art’s sake. As Baldwin wrote in his introduction to Volume 3, the annuals were also “a study of means, and styles, of confrontation — past, present, and, also, alas, to come.”

A Commitment to the Community: The Black Photographers Annual, Volume I continues at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (200 N. Boulevard, Richmond, VA)  through October 3.

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