#is not an obligation

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

Hi! I spent all morning reading your posts, your opinions are very interesting. If you don't mind and have a little bit if time I would love your opinion on something.

Firstly, I've been in the Harry / Louis fandom for 4 years ish. I love them both and follow them everyday. at the beginning I would follow them in a very care free way.

but going forward with time and following them in their everyday life between photos, promos, interviews, etc., one cannot help but run into the various theories about their relationships. at first it was almost funny to me. then it became a burden. let me explain: if you look at all the things they do it is obvious that some things are done on purpose for the Larries part of the fandom (for example when the photos of Harry with Olivia on the bridge in Civita came out but he had a L on one side and an H on the other).

So I came to the conclusion that at this point there are only two possibilities: 1- Harry and Louis are actually together and can't be in the open and this is their way of sending clues etc. so it would mean that all these harry and louis relationships (Olivia, Taylor, Eleanour etc ) would be pr or for cover-up.

2- Harry and Louis are not together and it's all a great marketing strategy. This option scares me because it would mean that they are not as good people as we believe. in the end so many Larries (aside from the disrespectful ones) are very good people who try to help them by sharing posts and theories online. they are people who are very emotionally invested in them. I understand that the world of celebrities is also made of this but I can assure you that majority of celebrities don't have such a great conspiracy theory behind their image. how could they feel good about themselves knowing that every day they scam thousands of people who follow them with their hearts?

What do you think about it?? what is your theory?

I would love your answer on this, feel free to message me

All the love :)

Thanks for your message. I'm glad you enjoyed reading my tumblr - and it's so lovely when people come and say

I do disagree with every bit of what you say. I disagree with the building blocks of your argument, and I disagree with what you think they mean when they're put together. I'll explain how I see it, maybe it'll help liking them and following them become less of a burden for you.

I'm going to approach this in two parts - first by responding to the idea that things must be done on purpose, and then on the idea that if they were that would mean there were only two options.

I don't think it's obvious that some things are done on purpose for the Larry part of the fandom. I think there are always so many alternative explanations. I also think that the idea that the only possible explanation that a complete stranger could do something is because they want you to see it - is fundamentally unsound. It speaks much more to the way human brain works than anything that could be true.

I'll start with the shoes (I assume that's what you meant, these shoes). I don't think that every long line and short line is an 'L'. I also think there are a lot of options for what 'L' can stand for. When I looked at that I thought of Louis and Harry, but that's because that's what I'm interested in - I didn't think that it was the only possible meaning for the person who created it.

Even more importantly to me than that, even if the 'L' stood for Louis as in Louis Tomlinson - it doesn't follow that Harry is writing his boyfriend's name on his shoes so that we can see. In fact, if Harry had an 'L' on his shoe - it seems to me that the most likely intended audience was his boyfriend who he was talking about - and not fans.

To suggest that the only reason that someone is saying something is because they want you and people like to you to hear - is to deny the importance of expression to humanity. Lets take the bears. I have never believed that the bears were primarily about coding messages for fandom. I have always thought they were primarily expressive by the people involved.

I think it's incredibly important that fans understand that we are no at the centre of an artist's world - an artists work and life is not about us. What you are arguing only makes sense if you have already committed so far to the idea that their lives are about us - that you can't even see that you're making that assumption.

*******

The other part of your argument is a reasonably common one in fandom, which amount to: "unless the story I am telling about X is true, then X is a bad person". I think it's important to understand that such arguments are not true and never could be true (we live in a complex world and there are many possibilities). Rather than being a serious argument about how the world is - they're basically an expressing of anxiety through black and white thinking. (The underlying mechanism for anxiety a lot of the time is that things are either good or bad and the possibility of you, or something you identify with is unbearable and therefore you must frantically prove their goodness).

I mostly just want to reject that logic completely - to point out that it's never right - there are always a lot more options. If that sort of way of thinking about

But I also want to suggest that there's a problem with the terms of the judgement. Fans have told stories about Harry and Louis based on what they were doing when they were teenagers. I think it's incredibly narrow and uncharitable to suggest that they could 'scam' people who had shaped their lives by telling stories about it. The relationship between fans and artists is really fucking complicated - and to suggest that there's a good and bad way to react to thousands of strangers telling complex stories about you - ignores how impossible that situation is.

I have just read Sarah Polley's book 'Running Towards Danger' - which I can't recommend highly enough for many reasons. In places, the book gives a glimpse of what it is like to be famous when you are a teenager. She talks about how difficult it was to meet a make a wish kid - how ultimately it required her to be able to behave like an object and not be a person.

So much of fandom discourse ultimately treats 1D members as objects to be acted on - rather than people. I know I do that - but I do try and avoid making the sort of fan position where you insist the objects life is about us - a position of righteousness and judgement.

[rish-you-were-here]

Happy pride

[hoofpeet]

14 year old artists listen to me right now (gripping you by the shoulders) STOP caring about your "internet presence" right naow. Draw slower and stop trying to boil your art down to an acceptable marketable brand

[fallen-goldfishcracker]

Wyll is so fucking funny and no amount of acknowledgement about this could ever be enough. He's literally walking around being so casually hilarious completely under-the-radar. He calls Halsin a "thick hunk of an elf". He once accidently implied that he was fucking an ogre instead of killing it and then proceeded to absolutely stumble his way through explaining. He gets excited by Lae'zel talking about carnal pleasures. He canonically tells his pessimistic thoughts to shut the hell up. He volunteers to babysit Shadowheart's hypothetical werewolf babies as long as she gets him gloves. He tries to give Gale a hero moniker like his own. He jokes that his father, the Grand Duke of Baldur's Gate, can't spell. He calls Astarion "Mister Fangs". He makes up storybook chapter names for his own fucking adventures. As a child he got chased by the Flaming Fist for stealing fruit, nearly drowned trying to find mermaids in the harbor, and almost successfully broke into the Counting House. He reads monster erotica, and is not ashamed to tell you about it. He ranks eating pudding among life's greatest moments. He will, without shame and completely unprompted, meow at you. He is 24 years old.

[rachelfc-art]

By Your Side

[tieflingkisser]

it is so disgusting watching other white people reassure each other about taking breaks from social media and "prioritizing your mental health" when literally the one thing Palestinians are asking for more than anything is that people do not look away from what is happening to them

EDIT since some people seem to have misunderstood: i'm talking about the white people who have given themselves and each other permission to check out and go on about their lives in blissful ignorance, not the people who actually are taking mental health breaks. hence the scare quotes. specifically i was reacting to a trend on tiktok at the time but it happens everywhere on social media

[science-lings]

my dad saw ao3 open on my computer and asked if that was like my writing club and just so you know that's what fanfic writers are now, we're all in the same writing club where we all write about the same media and show each other our little stories and that's kind of cool actually

[solacebean]

He’s just so funny to me I’ll never get over it

[prideprejudce]

one of the biggest tragedies of hotd is that rhaenyra would have actually had a really great older sister dynamic with her siblings in a different life. it was already shown that she has a soft spot for helaena and would have likely gone out of her way to protect her. she also would have been able to weirdly relate to aemonds feelings of not being good enough and always getting passed over. she would have held aegon by his legs upside-down outside the window of the red keep

[daftpatience]

i see a convo w a character ai and i keep scrolling

[alichan-the-witch]

Just made this, does this make sense to anyone else?

[thirdtimed]

id like to think that the reason why the lifers are stuck in an endless reincarnation loop isnt out of some twisted malintent of the watchers or some mechanism of fate its just bc the winners keep making the exact same wish every single time

[twilight-good-yall-dumb]

trying to feel less bad about myself on this Tuesday night, so answer my poll please~

btw, this is not counting the random kiss you had with a kid in preschool who your parents joked you would marry. This is like actual first romantic kiss as a sentient human being.

[sarakipin]

Is this truly the future you wanted? 🦋

[stil-lindigo]

the calamity.

a comic about being seen.

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[seatokki]

character development!