#taylor tomlinson you will always be real

[woman-respecter]

Idk if I'm just built different to the average tumblr user or if being a fan of women generally is what made it this way, but I think that using the TERFiness of the initial source of the news about Gaiman as an excuse was just weak

Like, my view was generally, "I do not trust the source they went to but if this is true I hope Gaiman suffers".

Being in nerd spaces and watching some really popular guys get taken down has given me such an ick for these men that even when I don't trust the podcast/journalist/what have you, I'm always going to side with the women.

No one else has our backs in this fight, so we can't afford turn on each other.

(And what do you know, more reputsble sources confirmed the story and got more accounts from victims to corroborate.)

An aside, I think what makes it harder to bring men like Gaiman down is their popularity and power. As I mentioned, I've aeen this happen before with other minor celebs, but their falls happened fadter because the companies they were at knew it would be bad for their profit margins to keep them around (see Chris Hardwick getting kicked for Taylor Tomlinson on @ Midnight as an example), but with guys like Gaiman, there isn't thst guardrail and so they take advantage of it.

real and true. like i wouldn’t necessarily trust that source on trans topics but if they have women coming forward with credible evidence against a rapist? i see no reason to discount it. i think people were in denial.

[starvingwhenitcomestothis]

i remember meeting this rlly cool straight girl last year. she wrote this cool book called berryhill and i commented how much i loved it and talked to a mutual in the coment section. the mutual never answered. but the author did.

next day thus author/cool straight girl messages me and tells me her crush rejected her. i tell her to listen to taylor swift (picture to burn) next thing i know she tells me im one of her best friends and i melt completely.

we message eachother every single day and turns out she isnt straight. she is bisexual.

we talk about one direction everyday, she tells me how much she loves louis tomlinsom and i tell her how much i love harry styles.

we tell eachother everything and anything, we learn eachothers icks and what makes us happy. we are open about our feelings and traumas and our demons. but even when it was embarrassing we never ever in a billion years judged eachother. ever.

she goes into a relationship, with some blonde scumbag. i myself get into a relationship, also with a blonde scumbag.

my said ex practically gave me the worlds biggest trust issues and made me want to jump off the face of the earth for a ratchet 2 months.

and her ex had a side bitch the entire time. who was also her bully.

we go single for a few months, and she admits she has feelings for me.

we try dating, but i froze in cold water and ended it after a few days.

we go off and on as friends with benefits/ lovers in denial.

she goes through an abusive toxic gross relationship. in which we almost stopped being best friends. however i was falling so hard in love with her it made me physically ill. and i knew i couldnt have her. yet atleast.

until february 18th, 23, we finally say fuck it and we admit our feelings. and ever since that day, weve been so stupidly and grossly in love. and 4 days into the relationship i told her i loved her on accident. bc idk we're wlw.

even tho sometimes we want to strangle eachother lovingly, i never regret commenting how much i loved that book. that book means alot to me now. and tonight im reading it again for the first time in months.

to my forever and always.

always in my heart, my real life harry styles.

sincerely your louis tomlinson.

ps, you still havent listened to picture to burn have you? its been a fucking year god woman

pss, still love you no matter what

[writtenbyhutchcraft]

Hi everyone! I made a new Tumblr blog after being away for a really long time. I've not been on here since high school lol, but I thought I'd come back seeing as a lot of the Hurts fandom is on here, and Swiftie Tumblr seems to be returning too :)

Here are some random facts about me to get to know me:

- My name's Victoria, I'm 21 and from the North West of England

- My main faves are The Killers/Brandon Flowers, Hurts and Taylor Swift

- My favourite Killers albums are Battle Born and Pressure Machine, and my top songs are This River Is Wild, In The Car Outside and Be Still

- My favourite Hurts albums are Surrender and Faith, and my top songs are Rolling Stone, Darkest Hour, All I Have To Give and Somebody To Die For

- My favourite Taylor Swift albums are Reputation and 1989, and my top songs are Superstar, The Best Day, Don't Blame Me and Look What You Made Me Do

- Some other artists/bands I really love are Depeche Mode, Maisie Peters, Louis Tomlinson, Kelsea Ballerini, MARINA, Courteeners, HAIM, Gary Numan, The War On Drugs and a lot of other people. Basically I love indie rock, dark synth music and country music :)

- Some of my hobbies are record collecting, making YouTube videos, writing essays about things I love for no reason, thrifting, going to concerts, reading, playing video games and going to see movies at the cinema

- I'm a Virgo and an INTJ

- I speak English and French and I'm trying to learn German at the moment

- I'm always wearing a band shirt, a leather jacket and combat boots/Converse

- A lot of the books I read are romcoms, YA real life drama type books and nonfiction books about music/musicians

- I'm passionate about mental health awareness and feminism

So yeah, there's some stuff about me. Follow if you like the same things/can relate 😊❤️

[thelastattempt]

You’re gonna have to explain your comments on your last ask to me: ‘I don’t see how the fan behaviour at a show of one artist is comparable to a different artist unless you’re arguing something about the great fabric of interlinked fandom culture’. What?

Oh boy. Okay. *cracks knuckles* here we go.

I meant that different artists create different cultures within their fan bases; sometimes intentionally but most of time it’s subconscious. Basically, different types of people gravitate to different kinds of artists. For example, you may find that a lot of women gravitate to Taylor Swift - this won’t be her entire fan base, and it may not even be the perception from within her fandom circles, but her proportional demographics show that young women resonate with her content. With Louis, there is a strain of commonality in his fan base, but you could also argue that his is skewed towards women also.

Now, you cannot accurately compare the fan behaviours of Taylor and of Louis because most importantly - they’re different artists, in different musical spaces, with differing career histories and trajectories. You cannot compare them because they may have differing input in fanbase curation. You cannot compare them despite similar demographics because something that would be a heinous crime at a Taylor Swift concert - like touching the artist - is something that is allowed (although closely controlled) at a Louis Tomlinson concert. And therefore the expectation of fan behaviour is different.

However you could look at both of these artists and say that they both have large online-addressed fandom presences that come together to create an accepted mentality and moralistic behaviour framework. It’s the same community thinking pattern that creates fan light projects, but also encourages the fandom police that feels emboldened to curb anything they don’t want to see. And if it gets enough traction, you see a mentality shift in a large section of the fan base until something that was ‘acceptable’ becomes ‘unacceptable’ without a direct steer from the artist themselves. This happens over time and can be dangerous also - especially if it’s a controversial behaviour, or a re-writing of history (which happens a lot in fandom spaces). There will also always be outliers - people that do not conform to the general consensus and providing they are safe, that is okay too.

And so, you could argue that fandom-propelled artists are more ‘at the mercy’ of the edict of their own fan base because they have a known culture in and of themselves, where they self regulate and self police, outside of the input of the artist. It could also be argued that these separate fandoms may feed off of each other in the online space in response to similar content, until their thinking becomes closer or further apart. But that is where the comparison really stops because like all cultures, each one is unique in its own bubble.

One Direction is an interesting case study because you can see in real time how fans of more than one individual will occasionally try and bridge that gap by performing a behaviour accepted at a one artists concert that isn’t accepted at another’s concert (oh, the barking *cringe*). But ultimately these spaces largely exist separate unto themselves.

And most commonalities of fan behaviour can be attributed to concert etiquette as a whole. Harry fans that had urinary accidents in the pit and Taylor fans that peed outside the venue because the queues were too long aren’t an indictment of the artist themselves, or an encouraged behaviour, but a commentary on the lack of adequate facilities and poor infrastructure. Unless it was really intentional which is a whole other post.

AND SO - to address the point of the previous ask - ultimately stating that one artist was touched inappropriately and therefore all Louie’s are sick for enjoying the barricade moment, where they get to experience the humanity of their idol (in a safe and hopefully non-boundary-crossing way) is a fallacy because it’s only understood from within its own culture - I.E would be considered odd for a Taylor fan maybe, because it’s not a part of their fandom experience. Although to underline again; touching anyone inappropriately without consent is unacceptable no matter the culture you’re functioning within.

Each artists fan base is different, but golly they’re all extremely vocal in these spaces and therefore can be inherently juxtaposed and so the question for me really is: does fandom as a structure make these live spaces better? Or worse?

[michellemisfit]

Thank you @rereadanon & @energievie for thinking of me, and @celestialmickey for creating the game!

🌈 Macy's Tag Game Tuesday! 🌈

Name: Michelle (Mys)

Age: 38

Where in the world are you: London, UK

The meaning behind your URL: When I got into early 2000 British Indie music everyone in a - not yet famous but oh so close to making it!! - band had a real first name and a last name consisting of part of their band name (Zac Needs of Special Needs for example) and everyone who was band adjacent went by a first name and a (often, but not always, alliterative) made up last name (Dave Danger, Zosha Bangles, Sophie Thunder, Laura Love, and so on…) hence Michelle Misfit. Which also fit into all the art I was doing at the time (for pay and not) and the dreams of opening a little shop in Camden on day, all of which came under Misfit Design. So the name is 20+ years old, but also Bradley James knows that that’s my username and has said it live on air (with no prompting what so ever!!) so I can never ever change it now! Hahaha

Your second favourite colour: Maroon

Any pets: Two cats, Wiggins & Howard - you can read all about them here. And also a farm full of livestock.

Favourite Season: Autumn. I work outdoors 70% of the time, so really really hot and really really cold are EVIL.

Last Thing you Read: I’ve just started the latest chapter of Dead Meet by @look-i-love-u & @energievie. Love love love.

Last Song you Listened to:

What are you wearing right now: erm… some strategically placed bubbles… 🛁

A hobby of yours: Fandom. Archery. Drawing.

Your comfort show and movie: I rotate, mostly because streaming services suck and randomly remove stuff I need to keep me happy, and appliances with DVD players are harder and harder to come by! But the list includes Buffy, Black Books, The Good Place, Parks & Rec, BBC Merlin (S1-S3), Queer Eye, Community, Taylor Tomlinson’s Netflix Specials, Middleditch & Schwartz,Great British Bake Off, and basically every other competitive baking show that exists… I don’t have a comfort movie, really, but Ruth’s comfort movie is Still Crazy, so it’s kind of become mine, too

And finally, what are you up to today? Recovering from seeing Death Cab for Cutie @ The Roundhouse last night, and getting ready to dress up and see Death Cab for Cutie @ The Royal Albert Hall tonight. Life is good right now!!!

🌈 I’m tagging @look-i-love-u, @deedala, @sufferwell1013, @thefairytail, @auds-and-evens, @heymrspatel, @gallawitchxx, @creepkinginc, @sleepyfacetoughguy, @sweetbee78, @lingy910y, @spaceofentropy, @callivich, @orca122, @francesrose3, @sickness-health-all-that-shit, and @gallavichgeek

[womanexile]

forbes. com/sites/stevebaltin/2019/09/08/qa-louis-tomlinson-on-kill-my-mind-taylor-swift-oasis-and-more/?sh=2a31bcb02996

"Baltin: What would be the coolest thing you could hear someone say about these songs you turned them on to?

Tomlinson: For me, I'm big on lyrics and I suppose that's why I mentioned Sam Fender, I think he is a fantastic lyricist. And if there's a song or a lyric or something that I resonate with and then I get feedback from the fans that they also like that, it makes us feel even more connected and even more on the same page. And social media in general, obviously that is a massive conversation and there are of course pros and cons and everyone can be on social media less. But the amazing thing for me is it gives me a chance to have a real, genuine, direct relationship with my fans. I know that I wouldn't feel as close to my fans without social media. What is great when Taylor Swift, and she is f**king amazing with her fans, does these listening parties and brings fans to the house, the involvement of the fans is never ending. Nobody knows better than these people. So I'm always looking for clever and different ways to involve them and feel like they're included in the whole creative."

Aww I love Louis. You know he’s telling the truth cause Louis doesn’t bs

[thegreenmetblue]

@professional-benaddict tagged me there and i love this so here’s mine 😌💖

i can’t possibly choose between my two favs so it’s gonna be peter parker and tony stark.

Ask Game about your fictional fave/s!

1. How did you discover your faves?

I discovered Tony while watching Civil War but didn’t really had my coup de foudre yet.

It happened when my parents made me watch Far From Home. It actually was the way Peter mourned Tony that made me watch the Iron Man movies.

And then obviously I became obsessed with both of them.

2. How long have you been a fan of your faves?

3 years. Ive been obsessively a fan for 3 years.

3. Do you write for your faves? (E.g. AU's, Drabbles, Fan Fics.)

Yesh, they are the ones I wrote the most about actually!

4. Do you like what is canon about your faves?

👁️👄👁️

I wouldn’t even know how to properly answer that, so i’ll go with a simple no.

5. Tell some of your headcanons of your faves.

Fix iittt- Tony comes back from the death after Endgame, NWH never happens, they both live happily ever after. Boom, my endgame.

I actually like the words they canonly live in, without the fact one is dead and one is forgotten from the whole universe.

6. Do you draw for your faves? (E.g. Fan Art)

Yes, a lot. I wish I could do small comics about them.

7. If your faves are portrayed by several actors, who are your fave portrayers?

Well, Tony will only and forever be Robert Downey Junior. No one else can be Iron Man.

My Peter is Tom Holland. Because Im in love with him.

8. Are you more into Books/Comics/Films when it comes to your faves?

If we take fanfictions out of the picture, Im more into the movies.

9. Quote anything about what your faves has said.

First sentences that come to my mind were

Tony : “Earth is closed today.”

Peter : “But if everything, it’s kinda your fault that Im here… Okay I take that back.”

10. Quote your favourite line of your faves!

Tony :

“No amount of money ever bought a second of time.”

“There's one thing you can never take away from me: I am Iron Man.”

“Everyone wants a happy ending, right? But it doesn't always roll that way.”

“United? Unity isn't about being the same. It's about working together. What you can't calculate, Ultron is that our differences are our greatest strength.”

Peter :

“When you can do the things that I can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.”

11. Ever made a edit for/of your faves?

I made a video about them, for a friend’s bday.

12. Songs you associate with your faves?

Tony :

Anti-Hero by Taylor Swift

Dancers by Virginia Man

Happiest Year by Jaymes Young

Mercury Man by Sickick

Protector by City Wolf

Back in Black by AC/DC

Hymn For the Missing by Red

Peter :

Clementine by Halsey

Cool by Troye Sivan

High Hopes by P!ATD

Karma by Taylor Swift

Sunflower by Post Malone

Hold On by Chord Overstreet

Two of Us by Louis Tomlinson,

You’re on Your Own Kid by Taylor Swift

Starker :

Avant Toi by Vitaa & Slimane

Hayloft II by Mother Mother

In Case You Don’t Live Forever by Ryan Stewart

Loves Me Not by Kate Grahn

Seventeen by Troye Sivan

Star Song by Sally Sossa & Lil Durk

Teacher’s Pet by Melanie Martinez

Tolerate it by Taylor Swift

Rät by Penelope Scott

13. If your faves were real, do you think they'd like you?

Peter would definitely like me, yeah. Idk, it’s just a feeling. I think we’d great friends.

For Tony, Idk, Id love to think he would but I would maybe be too in love with everything he does, that would probably annoy him at some point.

14. Amongst your faves who do you think are you? (E.g. You have 5 faves, amongst the 5 of them you think of yourself as fave no.3)

Im definitely Peter. We’re really alike.

15. Do you know your faves origin story?

Yess ofc. Im in awe with Tony’s. That man is just a freaking genius.

16. In 1 word describe your faves's aesthetic.

Peter : Nerdy

Tony : Philanthropist

17. Are your faves famous on A03?

Yes. Have you looked a them ? Duh. Also please Ao3 come back, we need you.

18. Ships that you like with your faves?

Them together. It’ll forever be my safe place.

Not against Pepperony and Spideychelle tho, but that’s all. Otherwise I get jealous.

19. Are your faves well known?

Definitely, me and my students have the same Spiderman and Iron Man clothes, bags, shoes at school.

20. If your faves have a fandom, what do you think about the fandom?

I love the MCU fandom, I love the universe, I love the movies and its been my safe place for three years now.

Natasha and Bucky are my babies.

21. Describe yourself using something your faves have said!

“I just wanted to be like you.”

Because I have a lack of self confidence and of will of living and I just idolize everyone bc I wish I could be like them.

22. If you would feed your faves something, what would it be?

I’d feed them love and cuddles because they definitely need some.

23. How do you see yourself in any of your faves?

I see myself a lot in Peter. Idk- just his way to talk, to move, to think. He’s just… so me. The Peter most people write in Starker fics also makes me think a lot of myself.

Tony makes me think of myself by his irony, self degradation skills, alcoholism, panic attacks, little depressing stuff that makes me identify to him.

24. Ever taken a break from your faves?

Nop, not since I started worshipping them, Im the worst. They still make me feel at home.

25. If your faves were to have a crossover, who and which character would they have a crossover with?

Mmmh, I see them well with Derek and Stiles for some unknown reasons ?

Or in the HP world bc Hogwarts AUs never get old.

Bonus: Anything that you'd like to tell your faves

Tony : I hope you find your peace. I hope you know that your sacrifice saved us all. I wish you were there, alive. But now, every time I look at the stars, I can see you. You’re my hero.

Peter : I remember you. I remember you and you’re not alone. Im here.

Tag some people to join in!

@sinditia @starkly @muse-of-gods @peterrparrkerr @kira-starker @laylasan-art @starkerscoop

[ao3feed-larry]

Home || Mafia!Larry || 3 ||

by runningwatermelon

Home [ hohm ] noun the place in which one's domestic affections are centered. *** The future of L'eau Courante was predefined by FEWA / DEATH. Be heartless, cruel, inhuman. A cold, always working machine. "You owe us everything. So don't make us ever regret our decision" "I won't. FEWA is my life. Nothing will ever come between me, L'eau Courante, and my mafia that is my past, my present, my future" ... Turned out, the latter had been a lie. Now, Louis didn't know, if he saw DEATH as his future - in Harry he saw his future. Not as his professional assistant, though. But he still was a mafia boss, didn't know when he had decided to not want his work life only. He had decided that DEATH never had been his true home. No, his home had green eyes and was kissing the back of his hand only to hear two words: "Fucking charmer".

Words: 12037, Chapters: 4/?, Language: English

Series: Part 1 of Mafia Larry series

Fandoms: One Direction (Band), Larry Stylinson - Fandom

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: M/M

Characters: Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Zayn Malik, Colton Haynes, Kendall Jenner, Taylor Swift, Bebe Rexha, Miley Cyrus, Jackson Whittemore

Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles & Louis Tomlinson

Additional Tags: Gay, larry - Freeform, Larry Stylinson Is Real, stylinson, larrystylinson, Fanfiction, mafia, Bottom Louis Tomlinson, Bottom Louis, Powerbottom Louis, Powerbottom, Top Harry, Love, Sex, Drugs, Violence, Crossdressing, bossbitch, Boss - Freeform, bitch, Lover - Freeform, Home, Sexual Tension, Sexual Content, Explicit Sexual Content, Funny, third part, Mafia Boss Louis, Mafia AU, Guns, Smut, Blow Jobs, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Illegal Activities, Crimes & Criminals, Crossdressing Louis Tomlinson, Feminine Louis Tomlinson, Louis Tomlinson in Panties, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson in Love, Louis Tomlinson in Lingerie, Daddy Kink, Rich Louis Tomlinson, Oral Sex, Louis Tomlinson in a Wheelchair, Louis Tomlinson in Heels, Louis Tomlinson in a Thong, Louis Tomlinson in a Dress

via AO3 works tagged 'Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson' https://ift.tt/6wUNueJ

[whatwouldeddiedo]

Tell me 5 Taylor songs and 5 non-Taylor songs I should listen to and why!

i'm gonna say my top 5 taylor songs (that aren't all too well because i never shut up about that one and it goes without saying that it's amazing)

Cowboy Like Me - absolutely my FAVORITE taylor song. it's so good. Just. There's something really special about the lyrics. Forever is the sweetest con???? what did she put in that lyric. IDK i just love it so much.

Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus - The longing and nostalgia in this song make it one of my favorites. I think there's just something so so relatable about what might have been if things had been different. I'm really obsessed with this song and I think it's really really underrated.

Sad Beautiful Tragic - I think this is such a beautiful song. I think Red is just so good and a lot of the songs hit emotionally. I think ATW is one of the best songs she's ever written and it overshadows a lot of her songs, and this is one that I think is a bit underrated by fans and also needs to be heard by non-fans. Don't get me started on the bridge of this one.

London Boy - WHATEVER THIS SONG IS SUCH A BOP AND I WILL LOVE IT FOREVER i think a lot of people dislike it or think it's a bit silly but I think it's one of my favorite songs on Lover and the fact that I was at the show where she played it will always always be my greatest joy. BUT GOD I LOVE THE ENGLISH!!!!!!

Cornelia Street - Another Lover song. I love love love this one because it really drives home that feeling of this is new and scary and not only could this person ruin me but they could ruin other things for me and that's terrifying and thrilling.

SOME NON TAYLOR SONGS

History of Man (Maisie Peters) - If you haven't listened to Maisie, I think this is one of the songs I would suggest that really drives home what a special song writer she is. It's definitely my favorite song on the Good Witch and one of my favorite songs on her entire discography. She's so good and this song is so so special.

Chicago (Louis Tomlinson) - Louis is probably the best lyricist to come out of One Direction (TO ME) and I just love love love his music. He has this fun pop-britpop-slightly pop punky vibe that is really perfect for his style and his voice. This song is another one that really hits the nostalgia what ifism of what could have been for me.

Pink Pony Club (Chappell Roan) - Listen, I know everyone has herd this song by now, but it really does hit home how much Chappell just loves singing fun songs that make people happy. It's such a fun little bop that's a great sing along.

Risk (Gracie Abrams) - I LOVE Gracie, and this is kind of a typical choice because it was a single, AND i definitely think she has better songs, but I love this one. It was the song I heard that made me look more into her and really really get into her music. It's fun and it's got great lyrics, and I love it.

Good Graces (Sabrina Carpenter) - No real explanation here. I love Sabrina, and I love this song. That's all.

[raeofgayshine]

!!! Music Tag!

5 songs you’re obsessed with…

Or as I’m going with, 5 songs I am absolutely completely normal about I don’t know what you mean

Everything I Had (Sub Radio)

Maybe it’s just the part of me that has lost the ability to do a lot of things I enjoy or at least used to be able to do with ease, but there is something that hits about screaming singing along “Everything I had. I want it I want it I want it back.” It’s not just a life free of pain or the ability to think clearly or not be exhausted by the little things I’ve lost (Though that is a large bit of it). But I’ve also lost people I used to care about, and places that used to feel like home, and it’s not quite fair how much has gotten lost with life.

We Made It (Louis Tomlinson)

God. Fuck. The queer in me is so fucking normal about this song I swear. I don’t even know how to explain it, there’s just something about the lyrics of like “We made it. Underestimated and always underrated.” That makes me go fucking feral and mixed with the “We were only kids just trying to work it out. Wonder what they’d think if they could see us now.” Like duudddde. What would younger baby queer me who was crying xemself to sleep every night out of fear think of me now? And also the line “What I could’ve become. Don’t know why they put all of this on us when we’re so young.” Fucking done. I can’t. And don’t even get me started on talking about why Louis wrote that line in particular and all the shit that happened with them as One Direction, I will stop being normal about it. Fuckkkk.

All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor Swift)

I’ve never been in a relationship, never will be. But when I tell you there a lyrics from this song I feel so deep in my heart thanks to all the other heartbreak life has dealt me. The line “I’d like to be my old self again, but I’m still trying to find it.” Is enough and it’s not even the start of it!! It might have to do with the length but this is one of these songs I go to when I hurt and can’t find my own words why but I know there’s lyrics out there that fit the situation. And then there’s the whole Blaine connection my god I just can’t, it’s a good song.

2022

Look me in the eye. Come here, look at me. I am Not putting this song on here because of why it was created (Phan). It’s the lyrics, the fucking lyrics that get me okay? That’s what this shit is about. Listen to this with just the lyrics and tell me you don’t go feral over the lines of “My tired eyes are blinded by the fairy lights. How far would I have gotten without you here? … I could have made it on my own, but you were like my stepping stones?” The lyrics are for soulmates I fucking swear and it doesn’t help I’ve permanently associated it with Charlie and Julius in my head. Just fuck dude, like yeah I could have made it through life without you but you make it easier. Listen to this and think about your favorite ship and you will thank me.

All of You (Encanto)

I am the most normal about this movie, I swear. This single song is all I need to send me into actual real life tears which is something that doesn’t happen easily. And if you’ve watched the movie I can imagine you understand why. It has so many good lyrics like “But the stars don’t shine, they burn.” “We’re just happy that you’re here,okay.” “She takes after you.” “You’re the real gift kid, let us in.” And the entire bit where the whole town shows up to help them!!! They’ve dedicated their lives to the town and the town will always look after them in return. And Bruno reuniting with his sisters and how happy they are he’s alive, Mariano going “Dolores, I see you.” Something she craves and the sisters working together and literally the whole end bit with the door knob!! I am foaming at the mouth, shaking a pool noodle violently, I am being so normal about this movie I swear.

It was hard only choosing five songs. I am definitely not overloading with feelings now. Anyways, I’m going to go not sleep. And uh, I tag @haunted-house-heart @blockofhoney @piscesintherain @keepers-log @wigglywiggles and anyone else that wants to do this!! Share music if you would like, I am so ready to hear it

5 songs you're obsessed with...

(Just 5?? How the hell am I just gonna pick 5 😭)

thanks for the tag @withgreatpowercomesmyfuckingdick!

Greatest Show on Earth (Nightwish) - yes it's 21 minutes, yes they keep you engaged the entire time, and i am obsessed w/ every minute. This one is the recording from their Wembley 2015 concert which is my personal favorite version. It covers the history of life on planet earth from the beginning to now in one song and it's fucking amazing so listen to it right fucking now (especially go find the youtube version because then you can watch the band have the time of their lives on stage)

Where Butterflies Never Die (Broken Iris) - psychadelic is how I describe this song but I can't find another word I like better. I discovered this song shortly before I got super into Trigun and holy fucking shit the amount I freaked out when I made the connection about the butterfly shit. Anyways highly recommend

Can You Hear It? (Aviators) - Off the Dreams of the Deep album, it's a fantastic song that digs into that good good eldritch horror stuff similar to the stuff we get in Bloodborne (which, there is at least one bb inspired song on this album so go listen to the entire thing if that sounds cool). Alt-rock with orchestral stuff thrown in I am in love from those first instrumental bars

The Seas (Envoi) - There's something about Envoi's sound and style that is just big nostolgia for me. It's sorta pop punk/rock but not quite and i just love it so much. This one gives me major season 2 opening for an anime vibes i don't know how else to explain it 😅 I recommend all their other stuff too it's great ("Ghost" to this day gives me such Tifa vibes its incredible).

Crash Poet (Cold Kingdom) - for me this is the song for Genesis. Blatant poetry/stage performance analogies?? Begging for the chance to step up and show how much you have to offer to the world? Yeah, it's Genesis alright.

as for tagging, how about @ibyte13, @nexomify, @darktiger57, @raeofgayshine and anyone else who wants to!

[mirrorballdazai]

heyy!! just out of curiosity, what are ur fav songs? or artists if u can't choose :] hope u have a great day!!!

LOVE THIS QUESTION !! THANK YOU

i have lots of favorite songs like the archer by taylor swift, sign of the times, fine line and from the dining table by harry styles, only the brave and defenceless by louis tomlinson, slipping through my fingers by abba, i always wanna die by the 1975, mama by mcr, real men by mitski, i know the end by phoebe bridges, girl anachronism by the dresden dolls and SO much more

my favorite artist ever is probably taylor swift, but i love love LOVE my chemical romance, one direction as a group and solo artists (not liam lmao), mitski, abba, the 1975… i’ve been listening to phoebe bridges and david bowie lately tho, they’re for sure my favorites atm. i also had this big bts phase for YEARS but i don’t really listen to their music that came out after their album persona because i mean… it’s not my thing yeah. but i used to be a huge fan back then, i even saw them live. But yeah short answer is taylor swift i live and breathe taylor swift

[kingstylesdaily]

Playtime With Harry Styles

via vogue.com

THE MEN’S BATHING POND in London’s Hampstead Heath at daybreak on a gloomy September morning seemed such an unlikely locale for my first meeting with Harry Styles, music’s legendarily charm-heavy style czar, that I wondered perhaps if something had been lost in translation.

But then there is Styles, cheerily gung ho, hidden behind a festive yellow bandana mask and a sweatshirt of his own design, surprisingly printed with three portraits of his intellectual pinup, the author Alain de Botton. “I love his writing,” says Styles. “I just think he’s brilliant. I saw him give a talk about the keys to happiness, and how one of the keys is living among friends, and how real friendship stems from being vulnerable with someone.”

In turn, de Botton’s 2016 novel The Course of Love taught Styles that “when it comes to relationships, you just expect yourself to be good at it…[but] being in a real relationship with someone is a skill,” one that Styles himself has often had to hone in the unforgiving klieg light of public attention, and in the company of such high-profile paramours as Taylor Swift and—well, Styles is too much of a gentleman to name names.

That sweatshirt and the Columbia Records tracksuit bottoms are removed in the quaint wooden open-air changing room, with its Swallows and Amazons vibe. A handful of intrepid fellow patrons in various states of undress are blissfully unaware of the 26-year-old supernova in their midst, although I must admit I’m finding it rather difficult to take my eyes off him, try as I might. Styles has been on a six-day juice cleanse in readiness for Vogue’s photographer Tyler Mitchell. He practices Pilates (“I’ve got very tight hamstrings—trying to get those open”) and meditates twice a day. “It has changed my life,” he avers, “but it’s so subtle. It’s helped me just be more present. I feel like I’m able to enjoy the things that are happening right in front of me, even if it’s food or it’s coffee or it’s being with a friend—or a swim in a really cold pond!” Styles also feels that his meditation practices have helped him through the tumult of 2020: “Meditation just brings a stillness that has been really beneficial, I think, for my mental health.”

Styles has been a pescatarian for three years, inspired by the vegan food that several members of his current band prepared on tour. “My body definitely feels better for it,” he says. His shapely torso is prettily inscribed with the tattoos of a Victorian sailor—a rose, a galleon, a mermaid, an anchor, and a palm tree among them, and, straddling his clavicle, the dates 1967 and 1957 (the respective birth years of his mother and father). Frankly, I rather wish I’d packed a beach muumuu.

We take the piratical gangplank that juts into the water and dive in. Let me tell you, this is not the Aegean. The glacial water is a cloudy phlegm green beneath the surface, and clammy reeds slap one’s ankles. Styles, who admits he will try any fad, has recently had a couple of cryotherapy sessions and is evidently less susceptible to the cold. By the time we have swum a full circuit, however, body temperatures have adjusted, and the ice, you might say, has been broken. Duly invigorated, we are ready to face the day. Styles has thoughtfully brought a canister of coffee and some bottles of water in his backpack, and we sit at either end of a park bench for a socially distanced chat.

It seems that he has had a productive year. At the onset of lockdown, Styles found himself in his second home, in the canyons of Los Angeles. After a few days on his own, however, he moved in with a pod of three friends (and subsequently with two band members, Mitch Rowland and Sarah Jones). They “would put names in a hat and plan the week out,” Styles explains. “If you were Monday, you would choose the movie, dinner, and the activity for that day. I like to make soups, and there was a big array of movies; we went all over the board,” from Goodfellas to Clueless. The experience, says Styles, “has been a really good lesson in what makes me happy now. It’s such a good example of living in the moment. I honestly just like being around my friends,” he adds. “That’s been my biggest takeaway. Just being on my own the whole time, I would have been miserable.”

Styles is big on friendship groups and considers his former and legendarily hysteria-inducing boy band, One Direction, to have been one of them. “I think the typical thing is to come out of a band like that and almost feel like you have to apologize for being in it,” says Styles. “But I loved my time in it. It was all new to me, and I was trying to learn as much as I could. I wanted to soak it in…. I think that’s probably why I like traveling now—soaking stuff up.” In a post-COVID future, he is contemplating a temporary move to Tokyo, explaining that “there’s a respect and a stillness, a quietness that I really loved every time I’ve been there.”

In 1D, Styles was making music whenever he could. “After a show you’d go in a hotel room and put down some vocals,” he recalls. As a result, his first solo album, 2017’s Harry Styles, “was when I really fell in love with being in the studio,” he says. “I loved it as much as touring.” Today he favors isolating with his core group of collaborators, “our little bubble”—Rowland, Kid Harpoon (né Tom Hull), and Tyler Johnson. “A safe space,” as he describes it.

In the music he has been working on in 2020, Styles wants to capture the experimental spirit that informed his second album, last year’s Fine Line. With his debut album, “I was very much finding out what my sound was as a solo artist,” he says. “I can see all the places where it almost felt like I was bowling with the bumpers up. I think with the second album I let go of the fear of getting it wrong and…it was really joyous and really free. I think with music it’s so important to evolve—and that extends to clothes and videos and all that stuff. That’s why you look back at David Bowie with Ziggy Stardust or the Beatles and their different eras—that fearlessness is super inspiring.”

The seismic changes of 2020—including the Black Lives Matter uprising around racial justice—has also provided Styles with an opportunity for personal growth. “I think it’s a time for opening up and learning and listening,” he says. “I’ve been trying to read and educate myself so that in 20 years I’m still doing the right things and taking the right steps. I believe in karma, and I think it’s just a time right now where we could use a little more kindness and empathy and patience with people, be a little more prepared to listen and grow.”

Meanwhile, Styles’s euphoric single “Watermelon Sugar” became something of an escapist anthem for this dystopian summer of 2020. The video, featuring Styles (dressed in ’70s-­flavored Gucci and Bode) cavorting with a pack of beach-babe girls and boys, was shot in January, before lockdown rules came into play. By the time it was ready to be released in May, a poignant epigraph had been added: “This video is dedicated to touching.”

Styles is looking forward to touring again, when “it’s safe for everyone,” because, as he notes, “being up against people is part of the whole thing. You can’t really re-create it in any way.” But it hasn’t always been so. Early in his career, Styles was so stricken with stage fright that he regularly threw up preperformance. “I just always thought I was going to mess up or something,” he remembers. “But I’ve felt really lucky to have a group of incredibly generous fans. They’re generous emotionally—and when they come to the show, they give so much that it creates this atmosphere that I’ve always found so loving and accepting.”

THIS SUMMER, when it was safe enough to travel, Styles returned to his London home, which is where he suggests we head now, setting off in his modish Primrose Yellow ’73 Jaguar that smells of gasoline and leatherette. “Me and my dad have always bonded over cars,” Styles explains. “I never thought I’d be someone who just went out for a leisurely drive, purely for enjoyment.” On sleepless jet-lagged nights he’ll drive through London’s quiet streets, seeing neighborhoods in a new way. “I find it quite relaxing,” he says.

Over the summer Styles took a road trip with his artist friend Tomo Campbell through France and Italy, setting off at four in the morning and spending the night in Geneva, where they jumped in the lake “to wake ourselves up.” (I see a pattern emerging.) At the end of the trip Styles drove home alone, accompanied by an upbeat playlist that included “Aretha Franklin, Parliament, and a lot of Stevie Wonder. It was really fun for me,” he says. “I don’t travel like that a lot. I’m usually in such a rush, but there was a stillness to it. I love the feeling of nobody knowing where I am, that kind of escape...and freedom.”

GROWING UP in a village in the North of England, Styles thought of London as a world apart: “It truly felt like a different country.” At a wide-eyed 16, he came down to the teeming metropolis after his mother entered him on the U.K. talent-search show The X Factor. “I went to the audition to find out if I could sing,” Styles recalls, “or if my mum was just being nice to me.” Styles was eliminated but subsequently brought back with other contestants—Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, and Zayn Malik—to form a boy band that was named (on Styles’s suggestion) One Direction. The wily X Factor creator and judge, Simon Cowell, soon signed them to his label Syco Records, and the rest is history: 1D’s first four albums, supported by four world tours from 2011 to 2015, debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard charts, and the band has sold 70 million records to date. At 18, Styles bought the London house he now calls home. “I was going to do two weeks’ work to it,” he remembers, “but when I came back there was no second floor,” so he moved in with adult friends who lived nearby till the renovation was complete. “Eighteen months,” he deadpans. “I’ve always seen that period as pretty pivotal for me, as there’s that moment at the party where it’s getting late, and half of the people would go upstairs to do drugs, and the other people go home. I was like, ‘I don’t really know this friend’s wife, so I’m not going to get all messy and then go home.’ I had to behave a bit, at a time where everything else about my life felt I didn’t have to behave really. I’ve been lucky to always feel I have this family unit somewhere.”

When Styles’s London renovation was finally done, “I went in for the first time and I cried,” he recalls. “Because I just felt like I had somewhere. L.A. feels like holiday, but this feels like home.”

Behind its pink door, Styles’s house has all the trappings of rock stardom—there’s a man cave filled with guitars, a Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks poster (a moving-in gift from his decorator), a Stevie Nicks album cover. Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” was one of the first songs he knew the words to—“My parents were big fans”—and he and Nicks have formed something of a mutual-admiration society. At the beginning of lockdown, Nicks tweeted to her fans that she was taking inspiration from Fine Line: “Way to go, H,” she wrote. “It is your Rumours.” “She’s always there for you,” said Styles when he inducted Nicks into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2019. “She knows what you need—advice, a little wisdom, a blouse, a shawl; she’s got you covered.”

Styles makes us some tea in the light-filled kitchen and then wanders into the convivial living room, where he strikes an insouciant pose on the chesterfield sofa, upholstered in a turquoise velvet that perhaps not entirely coincidentally sets off his eyes. Styles admits that his lockdown lewk was “sweatpants, constantly,” and he is relishing the opportunity to dress up again. He doesn’t have to wait long: The following day, under the eaves of a Victorian mansion in Notting Hill, I arrive in the middle of fittings for Vogue’s shoot and discover Styles in his Y-fronts, patiently waiting to try on looks for fashion editor Camilla Nickerson and photographer Tyler Mitchell. Styles’s personal stylist, Harry Lambert, wearing a pearl necklace and his nails colored in various shades of green varnish, à la Sally Bowles, is providing helpful backup (Britain’s Rule of Six hasn’t yet been imposed).

Styles, who has thoughtfully brought me a copy of de Botton’s 2006 book The Architecture of Happiness, is instinctively and almost quaintly polite, in an old-fashioned, holding-open-doors and not-mentioning-lovers-by-name sort of way. He is astounded to discover that the Atlanta-born Mitchell has yet to experience a traditional British Sunday roast dinner. Assuring him that “it’s basically like Thanksgiving every Sunday,” Styles gives Mitchell the details of his favorite London restaurants in which to enjoy one. “It’s a good thing to be nice,” Mitchell tells me after a morning in Styles’s company.

MITCHELL has Lionel Wendt’s languorously homoerotic 1930s portraits of young Sri Lankan men on his mood board. Nickerson is thinking of Irving Penn’s legendary fall 1950 Paris haute couture collections sitting, where he photographed midcentury supermodels, including his wife, Lisa Fonssagrives, in high-style Dior and Balenciaga creations. Styles is up for all of it, and so, it would seem, is the menswear landscape of 2020: Jonathan Anderson has produced a trapeze coat anchored with a chunky gold martingale; John Galliano at Maison Margiela has fashioned a khaki trench with a portrait neckline in layers of colored tulle; and Harris Reed—a Saint Martins fashion student sleuthed by Lambert who ended up making some looks for Styles’s last tour—has spent a week making a broad-shouldered Smoking jacket with high-waisted, wide-leg pants that have become a Styles signature since he posed for Tim Walker for the cover of Fine Line wearing a Gucci pair—a silhouette that was repeated in the tour wardrobe. (“I liked the idea of having that uniform,” says Styles.) Reed’s version is worn with a hoopskirt draped in festoons of hot-pink satin that somehow suggests Deborah Kerr asking Yul Brynner’s King of Siam, “Shall we dance?”

Styles introduces me to the writer and eyewear designer Gemma Styles, “my sister from the same womb,” he says. She is also here for the fitting: The siblings plan to surprise their mother with the double portrait on these pages.

I ask her whether her brother had always been interested in clothes.

“My mum loved to dress us up,” she remembers. “I always hated it, and Harry was always quite into it. She did some really elaborate papier-mâché outfits: She made a giant mug and then painted an atlas on it, and that was Harry being ‘The World Cup.’ Harry also had a little dalmatian-dog outfit,” she adds, “a hand-me-down from our closest family friends. He would just spend an inordinate amount of time wearing that outfit. But then Mum dressed me up as Cruella de Vil. She was always looking for any opportunity!”

“As a kid I definitely liked fancy dress,” Styles says. There were school plays, the first of which cast him as Barney, a church mouse. “I was really young, and I wore tights for that,” he recalls. “I remember it was crazy to me that I was wearing a pair of tights. And that was maybe where it all kicked off!”

Acting has also remained a fundamental form of expression for Styles. His sister recalls that even on the eve of his life-changing X Factor audition, Styles could sing in public only in an assumed voice. “He used to do quite a good sort of Elvis warble,” she remembers. During the rehearsals in the family home, “he would sing in the bathroom because if it was him singing as himself, he just couldn’t have anyone looking at him! I love his voice now,” she adds. “I’m so glad that he makes music that I actually enjoy listening to.”

Styles’s role-playing continued soon after 1D went on permanent hiatus in 2016, and he was cast in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, beating out dozens of professional actors for the role. “The good part was my character was a young soldier who didn’t really know what he was doing,” says Styles modestly. “The scale of the movie was so big that I was a tiny piece of the puzzle. It was definitely humbling. I just loved being outside of my comfort zone.”

His performance caught the eye of Olivia Wilde, who remembers that it “blew me away—the openness and commitment.” In turn, Styles loved Wilde’s directorial debut, Booksmart, and is ��very honored” that she cast him in a leading role for her second feature, a thriller titled Don’t Worry Darling, which went into production this fall. Styles will play the husband to Florence Pugh in what Styles describes as “a 1950s utopia in the California desert.”

Wilde’s movie is costumed by Academy Award nominee Arianne Phillips. “She and I did a little victory dance when we heard that we officially had Harry in the film,” notes Wilde, “because we knew that he has a real appreciation for fashion and style. And this movie is incredibly stylistic. It’s very heightened and opulent, and I’m really grateful that he is so enthusiastic about that element of the process—some actors just don’t care.”

“I like playing dress-up in general,” Styles concurs, in a masterpiece of understatement: This is the man, after all, who cohosted the Met’s 2019 “Notes on Camp” gala attired in a nipple-freeing black organza blouse with a lace jabot, and pants so high-waisted that they cupped his pectorals. The ensemble, accessorized with the pearl-drop earring of a dandified Elizabethan courtier, was created for Styles by Gucci’s Alessandro Michele, whom he befriended in 2014. Styles, who has subsequently personified the brand as the face of the Gucci fragrance, finds Michele “fearless with his work and his imagination. It’s really inspiring to be around someone who works like that.”

The two first met in London over a cappuccino. “It was just a kind of PR appointment,” says Michele, “but something magical happened, and Harry is now a friend. He has the aura of an English rock-and-roll star—like a young Greek god with the attitude of James Dean and a little bit of Mick Jagger—but no one is sweeter. He is the image of a new era, of the way that a man can look.”

Styles credits his style trans­formation—from Jack Wills tracksuit-clad boy-band heartthrob to nonpareil fashionisto—to his meeting the droll young stylist Harry Lambert seven years ago. They hit it off at once and have conspired ever since, enjoying a playfully campy rapport and calling each other Sue and Susan as they parse the niceties of the scarlet lace Gucci man-bra that Michele has made for Vogue’s shoot, for instance, or a pair of Bode pants hand-painted with biographical images (Styles sent Emily Adams Bode images of his family, and a photograph he had found of David Hockney and Joni Mitchell. “The idea of those two being friends, to me, was really beautiful,” Styles explains).

“He just has fun with clothing, and that’s kind of where I’ve got it from,” says Styles of Lambert. “He doesn’t take it too seriously, which means I don’t take it too seriously.” The process has been evolutionary. At his first meeting with Lambert, the stylist proposed “a pair of flares, and I was like, ‘Flares? That’s fucking crazy,’  ” Styles remembers. Now he declares that “you can never be overdressed. There’s no such thing. The people that I looked up to in music—Prince and David Bowie and Elvis and Freddie Mercury and Elton John—they’re such showmen. As a kid it was completely mind-blowing. Now I’ll put on something that feels really flamboyant, and I don’t feel crazy wearing it. I think if you get something that you feel amazing in, it’s like a superhero outfit. Clothes are there to have fun with and experiment with and play with. What’s really exciting is that all of these lines are just kind of crumbling away. When you take away ‘There’s clothes for men and there’s clothes for women,’ once you remove any barriers, obviously you open up the arena in which you can play. I’ll go in shops sometimes, and I just find myself looking at the women’s clothes thinking they’re amazing. It’s like anything—anytime you’re putting barriers up in your own life, you’re just limiting yourself. There’s so much joy to be had in playing with clothes. I’ve never really thought too much about what it means—it just becomes this extended part of creating something.”

“He’s up for it,” confirms Lambert, who earlier this year, for instance, found a JW Anderson cardigan with the look of a Rubik’s Cube (“on sale at matches.com!”). Styles wore it, accessorized with his own pearl necklace, for a Today rehearsal in February and it went viral: His fans were soon knitting their own versions and posting the results on TikTok. Jonathan Anderson declared himself “so impressed and incredibly humbled by this trend” that he nimbly made the pattern available (complete with a YouTube tutorial) so that Styles’s fans could copy it for free. Meanwhile, London’s storied Victoria & Albert Museum has requested Styles’s original: an emblematic document of how people got creative during the COVID era. “It’s going to be in their permanent collection,” says Lambert exultantly. “Is that not sick? Is that not the most epic thing?”

“To me, he’s very modern,” says Wilde of Styles, “and I hope that this brand of confidence as a male that Harry has—truly devoid of any traces of toxic masculinity—is indicative of his generation and therefore the future of the world. I think he is in many ways championing that, spearheading that. It’s pretty powerful and kind of extraordinary to see someone in his position redefining what it can mean to be a man with confidence.”

“He’s really in touch with his feminine side because it’s something natural,” notes Michele. “And he’s a big inspiration to a younger generation—about how you can be in a totally free playground when you feel comfortable. I think that he’s a revolutionary.”

STYLES’S confidence is on full display the day after the fitting, which finds us all on the beautiful Sussex dales. Over the summit of the hill, with its trees blown horizontal by the fierce winds, lies the English Channel. Even though it’s a two-hour drive from London, the fresh-faced Styles, who went to bed at 9 p.m., has arrived on set early: He is famously early for everything. The team is installed in a traditional flint-stone barn. The giant doors have been replaced by glass and frame a bucolic view of distant grazing sheep. “Look at that field!” says Styles. “How lucky are we? This is our office! Smell the roses!” Lambert starts to sing ��Kumbaya, my Lord.”

Hairdresser Malcolm Edwards is setting Styles’s hair in a Victory roll with silver clips, and until it is combed out he resembles Kathryn Grayson with stubble. His fingers are freighted with rings, and “he has a new army of mini purses,” says Lambert, gesturing to an accessory table heaving with examples including a mini sky-blue Gucci Diana bag discreetly monogrammed HS. Michele has also made Styles a dress for the shoot that Tissot might have liked to paint—acres of ice-blue ruffles, black Valenciennes lace, and suivez-moi, jeune homme ribbons. Erelong, Styles is gamely racing up a hill in it, dodging sheep scat, thistles, and shards of chalk, and striking a pose for Mitchell that manages to make ruffles a compelling new masculine proposition, just as Mr. Fish’s frothy white cotton dress—equal parts Romantic poet and Greek presidential guard—did for Mick Jagger when he wore it for The Rolling Stones’ free performance in Hyde Park in 1969, or as the suburban-mom floral housedress did for Kurt Cobain as he defined the iconoclastic grunge aesthetic. Styles is mischievously singing ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” to himself when Mitchell calls him outside to jump up and down on a trampoline in a Comme des Garçons buttoned wool kilt. “How did it look?” asks his sister when he comes in from the cold. “Divine,” says her brother in playful Lambert-speak.

As the wide sky is washed in pink, orange, and gray, like a Turner sunset, and Mitchell calls it a successful day, Styles is playing “Cherry” from Fine Line on his Fender acoustic on the hilltop. “He does his own stunts,” says his sister, laughing. The impromptu set is greeted with applause. “Thank you, Antwerp!” says Styles playfully, bowing to the crowd. “Thank you, fashion!”

[dailytomlinson]

While many artists would jump at the chance to tell you how lockdown has been a fruitful opportunity for self-improvement, full of pseudo self-help books and pompous podcasts, former One Directioner Louis Tomlinson is adamant that he has done, well, nothing.

“I’ve just watched loads of s___ TV,” he says after a long pause. “The Undoing is decent, isn’t it?”

Twenty-eight--year-old Tomlinson from Doncaster was always the down-to-earth Directioner, frequently describing himself as fringe member who spent more time analysing the band’s contracts than singing solos, known for chain-smoking his way through several packs of cigarettes a day and swearing like a trooper. A rarity, these days, among millennials who’d rather suck on a stem of kale and tweet about their #blessings.

He's getting ready to rehearse an exciting one-off gig that will be live-streamed from a secret London location on December 12, announced today exclusively via the Telegraph. The proceeds of the night will be split across four charities: The Stagehand Covid-19 Crew Relief Fund and Crew Nation, Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice and Marcus Rashford’s charity FareShare, to help end child poverty.

The gig means a great deal to Tomlinson, whose first ever tour as a solo artist, to promote his debut solo album WALLS, was cut short back in March after just two concerts in Spain and Mexico. It was an album he’d spent five years working on: a guitar-led project that ruptured with the preppy pop anthems of One Direction, inspired instead by Tomlinson’s love for Britpop.

No doubt he was anxious to get it right following a decade “grown in test tubes”, as Harry Styles once described the band’s formation on the X Factor, where they came third before going on to make a reported $280,000 a day as the most successful band in the world. The pressure, too, was intense: all four bandmates had already released their own solo debuts.

Was he left reeling, I ask, unable to perform at such a crucial moment?

“The thing that I always enjoyed the most about One Direction was playing the shows, so my master plan, when I realised I was going to do a solo career, was always my first tour. It’s something I’ve been looking forward to for the best part of five years now. I got so close, I got a taste for it, and it’s affected me like everyone else, but I’m forever an optimist,” he says down the phone, with what I can only imagine to be a rather phlegmatic shrug.

Sure, I say, but the last year can’t have been easy. Didn’t he feel like his purpose had popped?

“You know what,” he says, reflecting, “maybe because I’ve had real dark moments in my life, they’ve given me scope for optimism. In the grand scheme of things, of what I’ve experienced, these everyday problems...they don’t seem so bad.”

Tomlinson is referring to losing his 43-year-old mother, a midwife, to leukemia in 2016, and his 18-year-old sister Felicite, a model, to an accidental drug overdose in 2018. The double tragedy is something he has been open about on his own terms, dedicating his single, Two of Us, from WALLS, to his mother Johannah, while often checking in with fans who have lost members of their own family.

It’s not unusual for Tomlinson to ask his 34.9 million followers if they’re doing alright, receiving hundreds of thousands of personal replies. It’s not something he will discuss in interviews, however, after he slammed BBC Breakfast for shamelessly probing his trauma in February this year. “Never going back there again,” he tweeted after coming off the show.

“Social media is a ruthless, toxic place, so I don’t like to spend much time there,” says Tomlinson, “but because of experiencing such light and shade all while I was famous, I have a very deep connection with my fans. They’ve always been there for me.”

In return, Tomlinson is good to them. Last month he even promised some new music, saying that he’d written four songs in four days. Does this mean that a second album is on the way?

“Yeah, definitely,” he says. “I’m very, very excited. I had basically penciled down a plan before corona took over our lives. And now it's kind of given me a little bit of time to really get into what I want to say and what I want things to sound like. Because, you know, I was really proud of my first record, but there were moments that I felt were truer to me than others. I think that there were some songs where I took slightly more risk and owned what I love, saying, ‘This is who I want to be’. So I want to take a leaf out of their book.”

Fans might think he’s referring to writing more heartfelt autobiographical content such as Two of Us, but in fact, he’s referring specifically to rock-inspired Kill My Mind, he says, the first song on WALLS. “There’s a certain energy in that song, in its delivery, in its attitude, that I want to recreate. People are struggling at the moment, so I want to create a raucous, exciting atmosphere in my live show, not a somber, thoughtful one.”

He sighs, trying to articulate something that’s clearly been playing on his mind for a while. “You know, because of my story, my album was a little heavy at times and a little somber. And as I'm sure you're aware, from talking to me, now, that isn't who I am.”

It must be draining, I say, the weight of expectation in both the media and across his fanbase, to be a spokesperson for grief and hardship. To have tragedy prelude everything he does and says.

“Honestly, it’s part of being from Doncaster as well, I don’t like people feeling sorry for me. That’s the last thing I want.”

Too many incredible memories to mention but not a day goes by that I don't think about how amazing it was. @NiallOfficial @Harry_Styles @LiamPayne @zaynmalik . So proud of you all individually.

The problem is, says Tomlinson, he doesn’t have the best imagination. “I have interesting things to say musically, but what’s challenging from a writing perspective is that I write from the heart, and I can’t really get into someone else’s story. And right now, being stuck at home, you have so little experience to draw from. It’s actually quite hard to write these positive, uplifting songs, because actually, the experiences that you're going through on a day to day basis, you know, you they don't have that same flavour.”

There is something that’s helping, though: a secret spot near Los Angeles, where he divides his time. “It’s remote and kind of weird, and I’m going to go there for three days and write. I don’t know why I’m so drawn to it. I found it via a YouTube video. It’s got some very interesting locals who live there, it’s sort of backwards when it comes to technology. It feels like you’re going back in time when you’re there. But I don’t want to give it away.”

Another source of inspiration for his second album is the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ back catalogue. “I grew up on their album Bytheway. And during lockdown I've been knee deep in their stuff. I’ve watched every documentary, every video. And I find their lead guitarist John Frusciante just fascinating.”

Has he spoken to Frusicante?

“I f______ wish,” snorts Tomlinson.

Surely someone as well-known as Tomlinson could easily get in touch?

“No, honestly, I think he’s too cool for that. He’s not into that kind of thing.”

Tomlinson’s passion for all things rock is also spurring on a side hustle he picked up as a judge on the X Factor in 2018: managing an all-female rock band via his own imprint on Simon Cowell’s Syco label. While the group disbanded before releasing their first single, and Tomlinson split from Syco earlier this year, the singer is keen to nurture some more talent.

“I'm not gonna lie, my process with my imprint through Syco, it became challenging and it became frustrating at times,” Tomlinson says a little wearily. “The kind of artists that I was interested in developing – because I genuinely feel through my experience in One Direction, you know, one of the biggest f______ bands, I feel like I've learned a lot about the industry – they weren’t ready-made. So I had lots of artists that I took through the door that were rough and ready, but major labels want to see something that works straight away. I found that a little bit demotivating. I love her and she's an incredible artist, but not everyone is a Taylor Swift.”

Tomlinson spends much of his free time scouting new talent either on YouTube, Reddit or BBC Introducing – he’s currently a huge fan of indie Brighton band, Fickle Friends. His dream is to manage an all-female band playing instruments. “Because there's no one in that space. And I know eventually if I don't do it, someone else will!”

Before he drives off to rehearsals, we chatter about how much he's been practising his guitar playing, and how he can't wait to take the whole team working at his favourite grassroots venue, The Dome in Doncaster, out ice-skating after he performs there on his rescheduled tour. “Because I've got skills,” he says, and I can hear his chest puff.

And then I ask the question every retired member of One Direction has been batting off ever since they broke up in 2015, after Zayn Malik quit. Rumours that his bandmates saw him as a Judas went wild after some eagle eyes fans noticed they’d unfollowed him on Instagram. Payne, Tomlinson, Horan and Styles have barely mentioned him since. Recently, however, they re-followed him, and Payne has teased that a One Direction reunion is on the cards.

So: might 2021 be the year of resurrection?

“I thought you were going to ask something juicier!” say Tomlinson witheringly. “Look, I f______ love One Direction. I'm sure we're going to come back together one day, and I'll be doing a couple of One Direction songs in my gig. I always do that, so that's not alluding to any reunion or anything. But, I mean, look, I'm sure one day we'll get back together, because, you know, we were f______ great.”

[angelicamerlinbarnes]

WATCH THIS FIRST TRUST ME: Taylor Tomlinson On Growing Up Religious & Abstinent | CONAN on TBS.

Five, trying to explain to Lila why joining their family is a terrible mistake that she will surely regret for the rest of her life no matter how similar she may be to them in spirit: I love my siblings, because I am an adult, I’m a grown-up, yeah -

Five: My siblings, grown-up men and women, say things like

Five: “UGH. I hate my brother.” And I’m like

Five: What are you, four? (The age, not the number, we all know Klaus loves all of us, we’re not idiots.) (Well, mostly.) Nobody got enough hugs, hug yourself, walk it off.

Five: People who hate their families have unrealistic standards; they think families are made up of these superior beings, and they’re not!

Five: They’re just people, who suck, like the rest of us! That’s how we should introduce them, just like

Five: “These are my people! Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Ben, and Vanya! They do what they can.”

Five: Set the bar low. Have you realized that your family messed you up yet?

Five: Yeah, you find a strange dent in the back of your head, you’re like

Five: “What happened there?” They’re like

Five: “We did our best, that’s what happened there. You were slippery, so.”

Five: You ever have this happen to you as an adult, where you realize your family messed you up based on how other people react when you tell them stories about your childhood?

Five: Stories you thought were fine, cause when you’re a kid you’re stupid?

Five: You’re just like, *does a stupid little dance* “Everybody gets tied in the yard!” Like, you don’t know!

Five: Fast forward ten years you’re at a barbeque, everyone’s goin’ around swappin’ stories like

Five: “Oh my god, my mom was crazy. She used to make us take our shoes off in the house!”

Five: And you’re like, *fake high-pitched laugh* “I know! We wore muzzles at night!”

Five: *keeps laughing hysterically* What happened, why’d everyone get sad? What is it?

Five: *completely serious once again* My siblings are cool. My dad, not so much.

Five: My dad’s very conservative, he still thinks gay people shouldn’t be allowed to get married, which

Five: You’re gonna be real disappointed, buddy, cause all a your kids are gay. Seriously. Allison and Luther are datin’ Ray, Vanya’s got a girlfriend named Sissy - okay well you’d love her name I’ll say that much - Diego and Ben are both mooning after Klaus and Klaus is, well, Klaus. Plus there’s me, and I don’t feel any a that cause I’m lucky, and also I’m not your perfect little girl Dad, never was because I’M A BOY anyway back to the matter at hand

Five: I don’t know, you ever hear older people say stuff and you’re like

Five: “Oh, someone missed a software update!” Like that’s not, can’t just say that anymore.

Five: *spacing out* Out loud.

Five: We’re in a Target. Be quiet.

Five: *back to full-blown peppiness*

Five: It’s crazy! He tortured all of us for eighteen years, and the whole time, he was like

Five: *creepy old man voice* “Homosexuality is a sin.”

Five: And we’re like

Five: “Without homosexuality, you would not have a job. Us sparkly teens put food on your table, don’t bite the jazz hand that feeds you.”

Five: Growing up, he encouraged us to abstain from drugs, and alcohol, and sex, and enjoyment, and we really took all of that to heart, uh.

Five: I mean, Klaus is a recovering addict, Diego smokes weed to sleep, Ben is dead and therefore does whatever the fuck he wants, I’ve drunk more alcohol than there is on the whole ass earth and I know that because I drank every bottle I ever came across in the apocalypse, Allison and Vanya both smoke, I don’t know why, really only Luther followed all the rules and then he got all depressed because Dad sent him to the moon or whatever so now he’s all fucked up too, anyway -

Five: But it’s so easy to mess kids up, I have a lot of respect for my mother - not my father, he was a piece of shit - even babysitting -

Five: I just babysat my siblings, I was so nervous about it, I’m like

Five: “I don’t wanna mess these kids up. (Well, more than they already are.)”

Five: So I’m just gonna do everything myself, and I’m not gonna talk to them.

Five: And everything’ll be fine.

Five: So I go off to do my thing. My siblings, they’re idiots, adorable, they come running after me five minutes after I show up and go

Five: “Hey Five, what was the apocalypse like?”

Five: What? How do I explain severe isolation, desperation, desolation, depression, and survivalist coping mechanisms including assassination and imaginary friends to these children?

Five: How I even begin to explain the pain of loss and loneliness and the helpless hopelessness of knowing you will always be alone and that there’s nothing you can do about it?

Five: It’s complicated! I time-travelled, they died, I was sad, like, whatever, you get it.

Five: But I wanted to be honest, so I thought about it carefully, like

Five: What was the apocalypse like that’s similar to something they’ve done? Like, okay

Five: “Do you remember when you got lost at the grocery store? That was scary, right? But then do you remember the feeling you got when you finally found one of us? How safe and happy and relieved you were? And how you ran up to whoever you found and you grabbed their arm and then you looked up and it wasn’t one of us?”

Five: *takes a sip of scotch* Yeah. Not my best moment. They wouldn’t let me sleep alone that night, all cuddled up around me like a bunch a octopuses. Fuckin’ annoying.

Five: *waves a dismissive hand* Anyway. I love them. You still wanna join the family?

Lila:

Lila:

Lila:

Lila: *slowly shakes her head*

Five: *grins*

Five: Yeah, that’s what I thought. Thanks for killing your mom for us though!

Five, teleporting away: Bye!

Lila:

Lila:

Lila:

The Handler’s ghost: You need to get better taste in men.

[entertainment]

Entertainment Spotlight: Taylor Tomlinson

When comedian Taylor Tomlinson’s new hour-long Netflix special, Quarter Life Crisis, debuted, she added another red-letter win to her already impressive comedic resume. Performances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, CONAN, Comedy Central's Adam Devine's House Party, and Netflix’s The Comedy Lineup, as well as a top-ten finish in season 9 of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, have all endeared Taylor to a national audience. Variety Magazine named her one of the Top 10 Comics to Watch at the Just for Laughs Festival, and she’s a regular on What Just Happened??! with Fred Savage. Taylor also co-hosts Self-Helpless, an iTunes Top 100 podcast. Taylor took the time to chat with us about life and her new special. Check it out:

What would you say to people being introduced to your stand up with Quarter Life Crisis?

I hope it's relatable and funny and distracts them from anything difficult they’re going through (for an hour at least).

What’s something that happened to you recently that may make it into a future set? 

I broke off my engagement over the summer, a few months before we filmed Quarter-Life Crisis so that made its way into the special.

Do you have a joke or bit that you notice gets the biggest audience reaction? What is it?

The gobstopper joke in my special; that one gets the biggest response and is probably my favorite at the moment.

What’s the dumbest thing you’ve impulse-bought or impulsively done?

I bought some expensive vintage dresses thinking, “I’ll be fun and wear these somewhere for something!” And of course I didn’t. But they’re pretty!

Can you tell us about a time you bombed on stage? How did you handle it?

I had to do a college and the gig was to host a talent show. The crowd was drunk and chanting. I bombed after each act, then I got my check and went home.

What’s the funniest photo that you have on your phone?

My boyfriend takes pictures of me sleeping and then sends them to me later, which is both funny and embarrassing. He says I sleep like a dead gerbil.

If you could perform a set for any person, living or dead, real or fictional, who would it be?

My mom passed away when I was a kid so I always wish she could’ve seen what I’m doing.

What do you do if someone heckles you?

It depends on the situation: sometimes you talk to them until they quiet down, sometimes you put them down in a funny way, and sometimes you just nod to a bouncer because you know that no witty comeback is going to make them stop.

If there was a biopic made about your life, what would the title be and who would you want to play you?

The title would be: “Can you believe someone let us make this?” and I would hope I would play me!

Thanks for taking the time, Taylor! Quarter Life Crisis is now on Netflix! 

Photos: Allyson Riggs/Netflix & Todd Rosenberg

[louistomlinsoncouk]

While many artists would jump at the chance to tell you how lockdown has been a fruitful opportunity for self-improvement, full of pseudo self-help books and pompous podcasts, former One Directioner Louis Tomlinson is adamant that he has done, well, nothing.

“I’ve just watched loads of s___ TV,” he says after a long pause. “The Undoing is decent, isn’t it?”

Twenty-eight--year-old Tomlinson from Doncaster was always the down-to-earth Directioner, frequently describing himself as fringe member who spent more time analysing the band’s contracts than singing solos, known for chain-smoking his way through several packs of cigarettes a day and swearing like a trooper. A rarity, these days, among millennials who’d rather suck on a stem of kale and tweet about their #blessings.

Far from aimless, however, today the singer is full of beans, cheerily shushing his barking dog as he potters about his North London home where he lives with his best friend from home, Oli, and his girlfriend, the model Eleanor Calder.

He's getting ready to rehearse an exciting one-off gig that will be live-streamed from a secret London location on December 12, announced today exclusively via the Telegraph. The proceeds of the night will be split across four charities: The Stagehand Covid-19 Crew Relief Fund and Crew Nation, Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice and Marcus Rashford’s charity FareShare, to help end child poverty.

The gig means a great deal to Tomlinson, whose first ever tour as a solo artist, to promote his debut solo album WALLS, was cut short back in March after just two concerts in Spain and Mexico. It was an album he’d spent five years working on: a guitar-led project that ruptured with the preppy pop anthems of One Direction, inspired instead by Tomlinson’s love for Britpop.

No doubt he was anxious to get it right following a decade “grown in test tubes”, as Harry Styles once described the band’s formation on the X Factor, where they came third before going on to make a reported $280,000 a day as the most successful band in the world. The pressure, too, was intense: all four bandmates had already released their own solo debuts.

Was he left reeling, I ask, unable to perform at such a crucial moment?

“The thing that I always enjoyed the most about One Direction was playing the shows, so my master plan, when I realised I was going to do a solo career, was always my first tour. It’s something I’ve been looking forward to for the best part of five years now. I got so close, I got a taste for it, and it’s affected me like everyone else, but I’m forever an optimist,” he says down the phone, with what I can only imagine to be a rather phlegmatic shrug.

Sure, I say, but the last year can’t have been easy. Didn’t he feel like his purpose had popped?

“You know what,” he says, reflecting, “maybe because I’ve had real dark moments in my life, they’ve given me scope for optimism. In the grand scheme of things, of what I’ve experienced, these everyday problems...they don’t seem so bad.”

Tomlinson is referring to losing his 43-year-old mother, a midwife, to leukemia in 2016, and his 18-year-old sister Felicite, a model, to an accidental drug overdose in 2018. The double tragedy is something he has been open about on his own terms, dedicating his single, Two of Us, from WALLS, to his mother Johannah, while often checking in with fans who have lost members of their own family.

It’s not unusual for Tomlinson to ask his 34.9 million followers if they’re doing alright, receiving hundreds of thousands of personal replies. It’s not something he will discuss in interviews, however, after he slammed BBC Breakfast for shamelessly probing his trauma in February this year. “Never going back there again,” he tweeted after coming off the show.

“Social media is a ruthless, toxic place, so I don’t like to spend much time there,” says Tomlinson, “but because of experiencing such light and shade all while I was famous, I have a very deep connection with my fans. They’ve always been there for me.”

In return, Tomlinson is good to them. Last month he even promised some new music, saying that he’d written four songs in four days. Does this mean that a second album is on the way?

“Yeah, definitely,” he says. “I’m very, very excited. I had basically penciled down a plan before corona took over our lives. And now it's kind of given me a little bit of time to really get into what I want to say and what I want things to sound like. Because, you know, I was really proud of my first record, but there were moments that I felt were truer to me than others. I think that there were some songs where I took slightly more risk and owned what I love, saying, ‘This is who I want to be’. So I want to take a leaf out of their book.”

Fans might think he’s referring to writing more heartfelt autobiographical content such as Two of Us, but in fact, he’s referring specifically to rock-inspired Kill My Mind, he says, the first song on WALLS. “There’s a certain energy in that song, in its delivery, in its attitude, that I want to recreate. People are struggling at the moment, so I want to create a raucous, exciting atmosphere in my live show, not a somber, thoughtful one.”

He sighs, trying to articulate something that’s clearly been playing on his mind for a while. “You know, because of my story, my album was a little heavy at times and a little somber. And as I'm sure you're aware, from talking to me, now, that isn't who I am.”

It must be draining, I say, the weight of expectation in both the media and across his fanbase, to be a spokesperson for grief and hardship. To have tragedy prelude everything he does and says.

“Honestly, it’s part of being from Doncaster as well, I don’t like people feeling sorry for me. That’s the last thing I want.”

The problem is, says Tomlinson, he doesn’t have the best imagination. “I have interesting things to say musically, but what’s challenging from a writing perspective is that I write from the heart, and I can’t really get into someone else’s story. And right now, being stuck at home, you have so little experience to draw from. It’s actually quite hard to write these positive, uplifting songs, because actually, the experiences that you're going through on a day to day basis, you know, you they don't have that same flavour.”

There is something that’s helping, though: a secret spot near Los Angeles, where he divides his time to see his four-year-old son, Freddie, whom he shares with his ex Briana Jungwirth, a stylist. “It’s remote and kind of weird, and I’m going to go there for three days and write. I don’t know why I’m so drawn to it. I found it via a YouTube video. It’s got some very interesting locals who live there, it’s sort of backwards when it comes to technology. It feels like you’re going back in time when you’re there. But I don’t want to give it away.”

Another source of inspiration for his second album is the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ back catalogue. “I grew up on their album Bytheway. And during lockdown I've been knee deep in their stuff. I’ve watched every documentary, every video. And I find their lead guitarist John Frusciante just fascinating.”

Has he spoken to Frusicante?

“I f______ wish,” snorts Tomlinson.

Surely someone as well-known as Tomlinson could easily get in touch?

“No, honestly, I think he’s too cool for that. He’s not into that kind of thing.”

Tomlinson’s passion for all things rock is also spurring on a side hustle he picked up as a judge on the X Factor in 2018: managing an all-female rock band via his own imprint on Simon Cowell’s Syco label. While the group disbanded before releasing their first single, and Tomlinson split from Syco earlier this year, the singer is keen to nurture some more talent.

“I'm not gonna lie, my process with my imprint through Syco, it became challenging and it became frustrating at times,” Tomlinson says a little wearily. “The kind of artists that I was interested in developing – because I genuinely feel through my experience in One Direction, you know, one of the biggest f______ bands, I feel like I've learned a lot about the industry – they weren’t ready-made. So I had lots of artists that I took through the door that were rough and ready, but major labels want to see something that works straight away. I found that a little bit demotivating. I love her and she's an incredible artist, but not everyone is a Taylor Swift.”

Tomlinson spends much of his free time scouting new talent either on YouTube, Reddit or BBC Introducing – he’s currently a huge fan of indie Brighton band, Fickle Friends. His dream is to manage an all-female band playing instruments. “Because there's no one in that space. And I know eventually if I don't do it, someone else will!”

Before he drives off to rehearsals, we chatter about how much he's been practising his guitar playing, and how he can't wait to take the whole team working at his favourite grassroots venue, The Dome in Doncaster, out ice-skating after he performs there on his rescheduled tour. “Because I've got skills,” he says, and I can hear his chest puff.

And then I ask the question every retired member of One Direction has been batting off ever since they broke up in 2015, after Zayn Malik quit. Rumours that his bandmates saw him as a Judas went wild after some eagle eyes fans noticed they’d unfollowed him on Instagram. Payne, Tomlinson, Horan and Styles have barely mentioned him since. Recently, however, they re-followed him, and Payne has teased that a One Direction reunion is on the cards.

So: might 2021 be the year of resurrection?

“I thought you were going to ask something juicier!” say Tomlinson witheringly. “Look, I f______ love One Direction. I'm sure we're going to come back together one day, and I'll be doing a couple of One Direction songs in my gig. I always do that, so that's not alluding to any reunion or anything. But, I mean, look, I'm sure one day we'll get back together, because, you know, we were f______ great.”