#and Louis Tomlinson never sings consistently

[cantquitu]

.

[fookinhellcurlyyy]

Hello! I have a question about your previous anon who talked about Larries who blame Harry being closeted on Louis; this is a ridiculous take, so I’m not agreeing with that, but you mentioned something about a bad/annoying thing that Louis did earlier this year and I wanted to ask, what did you mean? I feel like I maybe missed something significant happening in this fandom, cause I can’t recall anything right now. Sending you lots of love x

Hi, love! Forgive me, but Imma copy-paste my previous rant from earlier in January because I already broke down what was happening at that time lol Imma put it under a cut because it was a whole-ass rant I did back then, and I do believe a lot of people out here felt the same at that time. And these things happened between Jan 1-4 or so—so barely halfway through the first week of the year) 😅 In reference to this.

Right now, the issue is about him blocking a fan on twitter (again), and some people on tumblr has come out as anon and said they got blocked the same time as the chicken parm bullshit tweet - which imo are all very childish to do using a very public account in a very public platform (I mean, if he himself hates his feed so much, he could use his dump acc and block people there instead and use the official twitter occasionally). Idk if it’s his own doing or his team; regardless, it’s not a great move. The recent one he blocked also happened to be a no stunt larrie, and bc of that, he has given antis yet again more power to bully us. There’s also Daisy Tomlinson posting F on her snapchat, hinting since post-Christmas - and ultimately posting photos of F with emojis covering his face. Many people then asked why she covered F’s face to which she answered, “it was Louis’ request and the kid’s face gets plastered all over the internet whenever we do it anw” (non-verbatim). Which is utter bs to me. They ignore the kid for good 5 years or so; then starts this good father image propaganda as Louis TM takes off his solo career; posts him whenever convenient (such as the Christmas/holiday stunts); showed him on AOTV which premiered worldwide btw (and could’ve been omitted for the sake of not exposing the kid to the world - I mean, as a romantic guy, he never even mentioned anything about his relationships apart from the band, the UK family, and randomly, F who he wants to protect apparently); and then suddenly they’re worried about his privacy? Sorry to say but they are 10 years too late (for god's sake, there's even a fan account/UA for F which is a big ???????? to me). Even if it's not his own doing - even if it's his team (management/label) that has to do it for him - larries are consistently getting thrown under the bus and take the most hit. To be fair, it seems that they still do the annual bs stuntery, and the twins have to be the one to do the posting, bc they are influencers that need the engagement. No one else posts the kid (again, poor, poor kid being the subject of attention in all of this), so they do the dirty work to satisfy the gp and feed the 'i'm a father' narrative. I probably have so much more to say but that's basically the summary of what's happening so far lol I mean, it happens all the time (this has become an annual thing apparently), but then again, like I said, you are allowed to be upset and call him out whenever he or his team messes up. Real people and real fans get hurt bc of miscalculated actions.

Note that that was the time when I also declared this towards the end of my rant: "(I’m so sorry for the long rant, I have been going through this the past few days lol He better be bluegreening/coding heavily on Lollapalooza India while singing 7 and Back To You with all the I LOVE HIMs and any other song that was ever connected to Harry bc we’re only halfway through the first week of the year and he already pissed off a lot of larries lol)" AND:

We did get a coded clothing through the Yohji Yamamoto x NEIGHBORHOOD T-shirt he wore in Radio One India.

He sang the I love HIMs.

We got confirmation that WDBHG's lyrics are actually printed correctly, and he deliberately changes the lines he sings every time just to avoid singing the "when I let you go" part lol

Soooo, I'm in still in my happy bubble atm lol

[twopoppies]

I was scrolling around IG and then a hate stunt blog start a discussion about H leaving the store in Italy twice, one take without the pleasing bag and then a 2nd take leaving with his assistant but this time with pleasing on sing so they suggestthat it was planned pap shoot and that also him talking/interacting with fans "living his life" is with a reason, suggesting that he is not like this at all as a person (like very social with), then private life topic came as he's been stunt/PRing for 4 years and what people think about that well some says the obvious: 2 relationships with a year contract each (CR/TR) the disaster of 2 years (OW) but then someone says: he has a secret partner, this acc ofc totally disagree saying that he could not save this "relationship" like a secret of the government and that after all those years G. public will know if that was the case BUT that this account have known he likes date men time to time and that is the "secret" indeed.

But this part kinda blow me because they saying that Lights Up was like written/dedicated for the man he is with and they point out that this person is a the same lvl famous as him and ofc is not Louis.

I was like wtf, So did you possible know or guess who could they be referring to? Because honestly nobody come to mind, There were someone or a speculation when Lights up release? I mean another male and singer as same level like hmm also very straight personality on stage ? Pff please some guidance on this 🤔

I have a headache just trying to read through this. WTF are they talking about? Lights Up wasn't dedicated to any secret boyfriend. And that whole side of the conversation where they're saying that "hiding someone you're in a relationship with is disrespectful" is ridiculous. It's a weird thing to do if you're hiding them because you're ashamed of the person, but not if you're doing it to afford the both of you some privacy or if you're closeted. "Don't keep them a secret when he never treated his PR stunt like that." WTF are you even talking about? Do you not understand the concept of a PR relationship?

The only part of the conversation that is accurate is that Lights Up is very, very obviously a queer song, and Harry has been "screaming" for years and years that he's not straight.

Anyway, everything else these people in your screenshots are saying is ridiculous. Lots of people like to say he has a secret relationship. The GF Harries say it's a woman (take your pick of the 75 different people who they think it could be), H*ylors say it's T*ylor, Harries who hate Louis but think Harry's queer say it's Brad or Xander or Alessandro or some other secret unknown person they invented, larries say it's Louis... I don't know why it's acceptable to say he's secretly dating some imaginary man, but it can't be Louis, even though the only consistent, compelling evidence we've seen of him dating anyone over the past 14 years has been for him dating Louis Tomlinson.

But these folks can knock themselves out arguing about it until the cows come home.

[a-larry-retrospective-blog]

Coming back to all of this after almost 10 years of no contact is so funny because it's even more crystal clear that Something happened.

Like wdym that Louis' discography is fucking CHOCK-FULL of "sorry I didn't call"/"I called but chickened out"/"I won't call so I'm just gonna knock on your door" (around 1/5 of his solo songs mentions phonecalls, I ran the numbers) (I'm very normal) and then Harry who, in comparison, has a waaayy lower frequency on mentioning phonecalls (less than 10% of his music catalogue, actually) made people fucking sing SE TELEFONANDO??? Apparently put it in his before the concert mix??? Mr Tomlinson you truly will never get away from the sound of a (wo)man that loved you???

Atp I hope that me fucking up my own Spotify wrapped on the last month of the year will help him buy a good consistent international plan for his phone??? I guess?????

[louisisalarrie]

Would there need to be “seeding” or “pre-warning” (I’m sorry I’m not sure how to phrase it) of anything relating to that stunt coming to an end? I might be missing the point entirely, but surely it coming out of the blue would be appropriate? the Aussie press are being very unpleasant- and there was me thinking that’s the job of the UK tabloids! I’d love your insight into this- thanks!

Heya!! Hmm… I think there would be, just to make it look less like a stunt? Ya know? And a lot of the GP have probably forgotten about it, they need to remind them and then give the shock headline. If they’d ended it with a paternity test a few months after the kid had been born, I think it could’ve come more out of the blue. But it’s been like 8 years, and we’re the only ones who really have kept up to date with it and believe it’s a stunt. So I mean, let’s have a go at writing some paternity test headlines and compare:

“Wrong Direction: Tomlinson, 32, posts shock announcement that he is in fact not the father of 8 year old son, F”

^ this would be a huge shock right???? Like… the gp would be questioning why the hell it’s taken this long, and why it’s all of a sudden been announced mid tour without any photos of him looking sad or annoyed or frustrated. I sure as hell would be DEVASTATED if that was me, ya know? I loved my “little lad” for 8 years, and all of a sudden, I’m actually not even a biological parent of him? I’d probably cancel my shows. I would be distraught.

However, if you had some pre warning, or seeding as it’s called, it might be a little easier to digest. Let’s have a look at a couple of headlines that could align over a number of weeks that gives Louis consistent PR, and align with the narrative.

“Testy Tomlinson: Louis Tomlinson, of former boy band One Direction, looks annoyed at fans as he lands in Sydney airport.” (Week 1)

“He’s No Harry Styles: Louis Tomlinson looks frustrated on stage, putting on a mediocre performance while he sits down and lets the fans sing for him, in a string of disappointing shows for Australian fans” (Week 3)

“Battle of the Band Member: Tomlinson, of former boy band One Direction, supposedly goes through custody battle of 8 year old child F, while B demands more money. Sources say the case has been going on for weeks, and Tomlinson will take a paternity test as per B’s request” (Week 6)

“Tomlinson in Trouble?: Louis Tomlinson partied hard last night, with leaked video of ex One Direction superstar under the influence of more than just alcohol” (Week 9)

“The Kid is Not My Son: Tomlinson, 32, makes shock announcement that F, 8, is in fact NOT his son. Sources say that ex-fling, B J, lied to the superstar around the time of conception, and used him for fame and fortune” (Week 12)

^ now, the above scenario doesn’t leave much room for Louis to come out, without leaking the stunts, unless he says he’s Bi or him and Harry have never been together prior, when the announcement that they are together happens. SO if they go down the track of not leaking any stunts as of right now, further seeding happens.

“Where Do Broken Hearts Go?: Louis Tomlinson, 32, leans on old friend and former bandmate Harry Styles, 30, after news breaks that he’s not the biological father of son F, as pair share a drink together in an LA club” (Week 15)

^ so this narrative actually shows Harry and Louis reuniting, and works well to move them forward as friends first. And after that, well there are multiple avenues they can take to come out, but the above is what fits the narrative the best, in my opinion. It also gets chatter about a reunion happening, linking the One D boys back together.

Also, the reason I’ve chosen those amount of weeks between articles, is because usually a successful ongoing PR stunt, or PR in general (I’ve worked on album launches etc, which are usually seeded and then hyped up at a typical 3 months before release), keeps his name in the headlines and has a story that people wanna know the ending to.

Also, the headlines are just examples and I never said I was any good at writing headlines hahahaha. Hope this helps with context on why I believe it’ll be a seeded and ongoing process!

[louisupdates]

Concert Review: Louis Tomlinson at Moody Amphitheater

Louis Tomlinson brought his headlining “Faith in the Future” Tour to Moody Amphitheater on July 7. Throughout the night, Tomlinson brought heartfelt lyrics, upbeat anthems, and an infectious positive energy that truly gave the Austin crowd a night to remember.

Written by Lauren Stephens

Photos by Lauren Stephens

Austin’s balmy air and glowing sunset enveloped Moody Amphitheater on July 7, where despite the warm Texas weather, Louis Tomlinson fans lined up along the venue’s perimeter anxiously awaiting what would be a fiery set from the British artist. They came bearing handmade signs, treasured merchandise, and an anticipatory excitement for the night ahead.

Around 7:10 pm, the show opened with a set from 23-year-old singer-songwriter Andrew Cushin. He kicked off with his hit song “You Don’t Belong” from his debut EP. The Newcastle native displayed a refreshing vulnerability, singing about everything from addiction (“4.5%”) and the everlasting remnants of childhood we all carry with us (“You’ll Be Free”). His mature lyrics and captivating stage presence made for a strong beginning to the night. At 8:00 pm, Scottish indie rock band The Snuts took the stage. Jack Cochrane, Joe McGilveray, Callum Wilson, and Jordan Mckay showed off their seamless group dynamic throughout their enlivening 30 minute set. They played a mix of indie rock tunes, ranging from summer tune “Maybe California” to their newest single “Gloria.” Their coming of age aura synced perfectly with the golden hour lighting and the crowd waving their hands in the air enthusiastically.

Shortly after the sun fell, The Snuts wrapped up their set, and the crowd felt the closeness of Tomlinson’s presence as the pre-show playlist came on shuffle. At each song’s end, everyone collectively held their breaths — eyes scanning the stage for the beloved singer — and released them as a new, non-Louis tune began. At 9:05 pm, their inhales released into a collective scream as the lights dipped the amphitheater into darkness. Seconds later, white lights flashed on stage and smoke filled the air as the supporting band walked out to their respective places. The recognizable opening drum beats of “The Greatest” rang through the venue, and in a haze of white fog and flashing lights, Tomlinson entered the stage with a smile. Screams erupted from the crowd before falling seamlessly into singing the first track off Faith In The Future along with him.

Following the opening track, the lights shifted into a sensual red as Tomlinson began his 2019 single “Kill My Mind.” Now adjusted to the stage, he gripped his mic passionately as he eased into the chorus singing, “I can ease the pain / Just a little taste babe / And ya won't let go of your hold on me.” Throughout the song and the rest of the set, Tomlinson was intentional about connecting with his fans, gracing all areas of the stages and pointing out to fans’ beaming faces. The crowd reflected his energy right back to him, dancing and rehearsing each lyric without hesitation.

The vibrant red lights shifted into a soft blue, signaling a shift into the more reflective single “Bigger Than Me.” Touching on the inner struggles of self-doubt and personal growth, the pop rock anthem brought the crowd together in beautiful solidarity. Tomlinson’s eyes gleamed with gratitude as he looked out, taking in the gravity of thousands of voices singing back to him, “Now I realize that the world outside / Is bigger than me.”

Throughout his hour and a half long set, Tomlinson never lost the attention of his audience. The crowd mirrored his every lyric, and consistently erupted into cheers between each song. There were moments of sentimental tears, such as during the One Direction original “Night Changes,” and others of spirited dancing during “She is Beauty” and “Back to You.”

After two minutes and 18 seconds of the sheer zeal of “Out of My System,” Tomlinson disappeared off the stage in a post-firework fog. Fans quickly caught the encore memo and began chanting, “Louis! Louis! Louis!” After a couple minutes passed, a single spotlight appeared on the dark stage, and Tomlinson reappeared, standing alone on the side of the stage. His warm voice recollected a darker time in the beginning lines of “Saturdays,” “Feelin' dirty cheap on Silver Street / At quarter to three / Hidden across my face / In the crowd, I'm countin' up the days / In a haze.” The pensive first verse and nostalgic pre-chorus slowly built into the all of the lights going up and the band joining in as he sang, “No matter how much you want it, some things change.”

For the final two songs of the set, Tomlinson played an ode to his past life with “Where Do Broken Hearts Go,” from One Direction’s fourth studio album, Four. Suddenly we were back in 2014, and the atmosphere filled with a sense of reminiscence and nostalgia for a time that was simpler. After the crowd screamed the last, “Where do broken hearts go?” back at Tomlinson, the stage dimmed yet again. Soon after, a singular light welcomed the beginning of Faith in the Future’s third single “Silver Tongues.” Reflecting on the bliss of coming-of-age moments, the song perfectly captured the night’s youthful fervor as fans echoed, “Nights like these, we'll remember,” and Tomlinson’s powerful performance proved this to be true to every audience member. As the song closed out, fireworks pierced the black sky and streamers cascaded down, with fans reaching up, hoping to take a small part of Tomlinson’s magic with them.

“The Faith in The Future” Tour’s success made it even more clear how influential Tomlinson has become. Louis’ fans know every lyric to every tune, and there is a sense of community at his concerts that few artists achieve. His music speaks to some of his darkest moments and greatest memories, creating a striking bond between him and his fans. In this, Tomlinson perfectly, yet honestly, fulfills the greatest gift of music: to connect people.

[dailytomlinson]

When Louis Tomlinson announced the Away From Home Festival a few weeks ago “to say thank you for all the support and celebrate the return of live music” we all knew it was going to be amazing but, as usual, he managed to go way beyond our expectations last night. I don’t know how he does that every single time, I guess that’s another of his so so so many talents!

Preceded by wonderful bands The Snuts and Bilk and special guest DJ Radio 1’s Jess Iszatt – very VERY appreciated by Louies 🏳️‍🌈  – our Tommo was supposed to perform at 9 pm but was probably too excited that he couldn’t even wait and came on stage earlier.

The setlist consisted of all the tracks from his awesome debut album Walls (he messed up some lyrics but shhh), the revised version of his debut single Just Hold On, some covers he’s loyal to and some One Direction bops.

He also finally blessed us again singing ‘Copy Of A Copy Of A Copy’ and had the audacity to be impressed when everyone knew the lyrics by heart after “listening to it only once” during his December livestream…who’s gonna tell him we’ve cried every single day over that song in the past eight months?

He performed a new tune as well called ‘Change’, a ballad he had hinted at when some fan asked him about the setlist few days ago. Yeah “the odd change” was ‘Change’. He’s so extra, we stan.

⚠️ END OF SPOILER ⚠️

Both COACOAC and ‘Change’ will also be on LT2, an album which is already saving the music industry before even being released!

Louies could leave a message for Tommo and there were so many in such a short time that I really hope he can read them all so he can feel all the love and appreciation from his dedicated fans ❤️

“It’s been a great first show back! You have blown my fucking mind tonight Crystal Palace. You’ve been incredible! I’ve spent months speculating, what it might feel like, what it might look like, what it might sound like and, as per fucking usual, you went beyond my fucking expectations!” Tomlinson said at the end of the show. Little did he know that’s exactly how Louies feel every single time he comes up with any idea.

The show will be available online on Saturday 4th for Louies who didn’t manage to be there yesterday – or for those who did but still want to cry over HQ footage – on Veeps and you can get tickets here. There’s gonna be a 30 minutes documentary and I can’t wait to find out more!

Also, if you – like me 💔 – weren’t able to attend, don’t despair! As Tomlinson himself said, he hopes the Away From Home Festival becomes an annual thing, maybe in a different country every year. And so do we, that’s for sure.

Louis looked so happy and excited to be finally back on stage, smiling and buzzing the whole time. His vocals were on point (as his vocal coach Helene said he’s been spending a lot of time working on that during the past months), he sounded confident, he owned the stage, he entertained the crowd, he just simply SMASHED IT.

His whole family being there for him and the special mention to his mum before singing “Two Of Us” – “I love you, mum” – had already tested our hearts but the last straw was definitely the speech he gave to thank his fans for all the support and to say once again how much he loves us. He was so overwhelmed that he struggled for words – and Louis Tomlinson NEVER does – repeating “I f*cking love you” and I think that’s beautiful.

The best is yet to come, “it’s time to start f*cking winning” and, at every single step, we will be here to tell you how much we f*cking love you too, Louis.

“Any opportunity I can be with you lot, any time I’m on stage, I will. You guys make me feel fucking invincible, I love it.” You ARE invincible. We are lucky to stan you and we couldn’t love you more.

You might have created the Away From Home Festival, but you never fail to make us all feel at home and we will never thank you enough for that ❤️

[kingstylesdaily]

Why Harry Styles Just Scored His First No. 1 Song

Like any boy band alumnus, he first had to overcome radio’s bias against teen heartthrobs.

Late summer is a great time for sleeper hits: songs that have been hanging around the charts for months and finally hit their stride. Four years ago, in August 2016, Sia’s “Cheap Thrills” reached No. 1 after knocking around the charts since the prior winter, getting its final boost from a Sean Paul remix. In September 2018, Maroon 5’s year-old “Girls Like You” slipped into the top slot after wafting around the Top 10 for more than four months, with a Cardi B verse putting it over the edge. Last year around Labor Day, Lizzo finally topped the Hot 100 with “Truth Hurts,” a song that was two years old and had been rising gradually on the chart since the spring.

This year’s sleeper hit is “Watermelon Sugar,” a wisp of a song by boy bander–turned–self-styled rock star Harry Styles. With a name inspired by Richard Brautigan’s hippie-era, post-apocalyptic novella In Watermelon Sugar, Styles’ lackadaisical tune is not only a sleeper but a grower, the sort of hit that sneaks up on you—I wasn’t sure it even had a fully written chorus the first time I heard it, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone. Indeed, the whole nation took its time deciding that this quirky ditty would give the starriest, most eccentric member of One Direction his first-ever U.S. chart-topper.

“Watermelon Sugar” is the third single promoted from Styles’ second solo album Fine Line, which was released last December. That alone is remarkable, given the challenge in the digital age of generating chart interest in anything other than an album’s first couple of singles. Generally, in an era when all of an album’s songs are available to be consumed the day the album drops, you need a remix or a special guest of some kind to gin up chart action months after the song first hits streaming. “Sugar” has none of those. To be sure, there was some gimmickry fueling the song’s leap to the top, albeit of an old-fashioned kind: The song had its best week of sales ever thanks to an assortment of limited-edition vinyl and cassette singles that came bundled with a digital download. Those sales got “Sugar” the last mile on the charts, but Columbia Records wouldn’t have put the physical goods on sale if the song wasn’t already a radio smash—“Sugar” currently has the second-biggest U.S. airplay audience—and they knew they had an opening between current hits by Taylor Swift and a pair of lascivious female rappers I’ll almost certainly be writing about in this space next week. So, fair play to Team Harry: They took advantage of an open chart window, a tactic as old as the Hot 100 itself.

As “Sugar” leaps from No. 7 to No. 1 on the Hot 100 this week—essentially switching places with his ex-girlfriend Taylor Swift’s “Cardigan,” which falls to No. 8—Styles scores only the second-ever chart-topper by a member of One Direction. That includes all of the hits by 1D itself. In its five years of recording, from 2011 through 2015, the band never scored a Hot 100 No. 1. This despite topping the Billboard 200 album chart with its first four studio albums, the only group in history to launch a career with that haul. So … what was that other 1D-affiliated Hot 100–topper I mentioned? It was by ex-member Zayn Malik, the only member to break from the crew while it was still active. Zayn’s smoldering, Weeknd-esque boudoir jam “Pillowtalk” debuted at No. 1—and spent a solitary week there—in the winter of 2016, fueled by blockbuster streams and downloads ginned up by 1D superfans still mourning his departure the prior year and the group’s resulting, presumably permanent hiatus.

Explaining how the top-selling boy band of the 2010s could shift so many CDs and downloads but generate only two No. 1 singles means briefly recapping the fraught history of boy bands and the charts. Selling albums has never been hard for pinup pop groups, since the days of Meet the Beatles! and More of the Monkees. And in the ’70s and ’80s, such precision sing-and-dance troupes as the Jackson 5, the Osmonds, and New Edition managed to generate both gold albums and chart-conquering singles. In 1989, New Kids on the Block had the year’s second-biggest album and four of the year’s top singles, including a pair of No. 1s. But starting in the ’90s, as U.S. radio networks consolidated (fueled by the 1996 Telecommunications Act) and programmers more narrowly targeted specific demographics, radio stations shied away from maximalist teen-pop that appealed primarily to under-18 audiences. By the end of that decade, even as boy bands were enjoying a new wave of TRL-fueled popularity, radio became a chart handicap for them. The Backstreet Boys and ’N Sync had the top-selling albums of 1999 and 2000, respectively—the diamond-selling Millennium and No Strings Attached—but only scored a solitary Hot 100 topper between them, ’N Sync’s “It’s Gonna Be Me.” (Backstreet never hit No. 1: The deathless “I Want It That Way” peaked at No. 6.)

This radio bias against boy bands has persisted into the 21st century. And ever since the Hot 100 went digital about a decade and a half ago, teen-pop’s chart placements have been the result of a battle between rabid downloaders and radio gatekeepers—massive digital sales compensating for modest radio play. For example, radio was what kept the Jonas Brothers from scoring any chart-topping hits during their original wave of teen idoldom; their biggest hit of the ’00s, the No. 5 hit “Burnin’ Up,” sold 2 million downloads but only ranked 55th at U.S. radio. By the ’10s, the same fate befell one-man boy band Justin Bieber. In this long-running Slate series, I have chronicled the blow-by-blow between Justin Bieber and radio programmers that swung from Justin as hit-starved teen idol in the early ’10s to dominant young-adult chart-dominator in the late ’10s. In the early ’10s period, Bieber was a YouTube and iTunes demigod with not a single radio smash to his name. He could sell a half-million downloads of “Boyfriend” in a week and still fall short of the No. 1 spot, thanks (no thanks) to radio.

For One Direction, the chart patterns were the same. A Frankenstein’s monster that Simon Cowell famously threw together in 2010 on his televised competition The X Factor from five solo competitors—Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson—1D continually found its singles dragged down on the Hot 100 by radio, even as the band sold truckloads of albums. The pattern was set in fall 2012 when “Live While We’re Young” debuted with a staggering 341,000 downloads but could only get to No. 3 on the Hot 100, thanks to its 50th-ranked radio airplay. In the summer of 2013, the slyly Who-interpolating “Best Song Ever” became 1D’s highest-charting hit ever, debuting at No. 2 with record video views and near-record downloads, but at radio it never got past No. 53. “Story of My Life” (No. 6, 2014), “Drag Me Down” (No. 3, 2015)—no matter how many downloads sold or videos viewed, 1D could never top the Hot 100 so long as its radio spins remained limited.

The reason I’m running down all of this granular chart data is it reveals the hurdles both 1D and its post-breakup soloists had to overcome to top the Hot 100. Like Justin Bieber, they had to become credible radio fodder with adults as well as kids. With his early break from the group, Zayn was the first to pull this off. Though “Pillowtalk” debuted at No. 1 largely due to massive sales and streams, the carnal song did eventually become a No. 4–ranked airplay hit. Cleverly, Zayn had chosen a then-current EDM-inflected R&B mode and dropped his debut while the Weeknd was between albums. Other former 1D-ers have had their share of solid radio hits, including Liam Payne’s hip-hop–inflected “Strip That Down” featuring Quavo of Migos (No. 10 on the Hot 100, No. 4 on Radio Songs) and Niall Horan’s softly bopping pop jam “Slow Hands” (No. 11 Hot 100, No. 2 Radio Songs).

And Harry Styles? He decided to make things harder on himself. His 2017 debut album was chockablock with old-school classic rock. This would be like launching a career in 1964 with big-band jazz. While Styles’ fame ensured a big launch for his Bowie-esque single “Sign of the Times”—it opened, and peaked, at No. 4 on the Hot 100, fueled by strong downloads—radio showed only moderate interest. It eventually reached a modest No. 21 on the airplay chart. Later Harry singles like the twangy “Two Ghosts” and the thrashy “Kiwi” missed the Hot 100 and had little radio profile beyond a handful of pure-pop stations that were loyal to Styles from his 1D days. One admired Harry for following his artistic muse—more Joni Mitchell than Justin Bieber—but as a pop star, he arguably squandered his momentum coming out of One Direction.

What has made Fine Line, Styles’ sophomore album, such a clever left turn is he retained the rock flavor he naturally gravitates toward but converted it into mellow California-style surf-pop, and he let his production team—Tyler Johnson and Thomas “Kid Harpoon” Hull—fashion the songs into percolating radio jams. Each single has opened the door a bit wider: “Lights Up,” a No. 17 last October, is lightly strummed beach music with ethereal backing vocals. And “Adore You,” a No. 6 hit in April (for my money, still Styles’ best single), is thumping electropop. “Adore” in particular served as Styles’ entrée onto radio’s A-list—it reached No. 1 on mainstream Top 40 stations and No. 2 on Radio Songs by early summer.

With this beachhead established, Harry was finally free to let his freak flag fly with “Watermelon Sugar,” which is simultaneously his oddest single and his most infectious. The chorus consists of nothing more than the line “Watermelon sugar high” repeated a half-dozen or more times, with emphasis on the “HIGH.” (TikTok users have keyed into this idiosyncrasy, sharing videos in which the “high” gets its own video edit of the user playacting her best stoner face.) Last November, when Styles did double-duty hosting and singing on Saturday Night Live, “Sugar” was one of the songs he performed, and in that indoor setting, it came off as willfully quirky and seasonally incongruous; the song’s first verse line is “Tastes like strawberries on a summer evenin’.” Now, timed for 2020’s beach season—complete with a video filled with beautiful people on the shore, shot just before the pandemic and, according to a title card, “dedicated to touching”—it’s sitting atop the hit parade.

In short, Harry Styles finally has a profile on the radio and on the Hot 100 that matches his profile on magazine covers, and he achieved it on his own schedule and something like his own terms. Like John Lennon in the ’70s—the founder and nominal leader of the Beatles but the last former Fab to reach the toppermost of the poppermost as a solo artist—Styles just had to find his own way. As that onetime teen heartthrob sang, “Whatever gets you to the light, it’s all right.”

source: Slate

[theyellowplaceposts]

Will you marry me, Harry Styles?

I first saw Harry Styles one Friday night in 2011. I found him in my childhood home, where my big sister and her other 13 year old friends were watching videos of a British boy band on our HP Pavilion desktop. I inserted myself in a corner behind them and watched over their shoulders while a rambunctious group of 5 teenage boys, sitting in a staircase, answered questions from fans bumbling with laughter and awkwardness. 

I soon came to know these 5 boys as a music sensation called One Direction. One Direction, a British boy band, who at the time, only had two songs out. Consisting of Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik, the group was quickly ravishing the hearts of young girls across the globe. First formed on the British television show “The X Factor” in the winter of 2010, they’d found their way into our family basement on a Friday in 2011. 

I spent that weekend finding out as much as I possibly could about “1D.” I’d scoured the internet for their birthdays, favourite foods and songs, their ideal girls and personality types. Devoting my Friday, Saturday and Sunday to my research, I couldn’t wait for school to come around so that I could deliver the heart pounding news to my friends. And by that Monday at lunch, courtesy of the J-14 magazine I brought in my backpack, the news of One Direction had spread amongst the elementary school girls like head lice. 

At recess we traded in Taio Cruze’s “Dynamite” for 1D’s “What Makes You Beautiful,” during math we wrote their names, circled in hearts, on the pages of our Hilroy Exercise books, and at lunch we called dibs on our favourite members. And I, getting first pick, had only one name in mind: Harry Edward Styles. 

Harry Styles and I are exactly 6 years and two months apart, him being born on the first day of February and I, on the last day of March. Harry Styles has brown curly hair and dimples on each cheek. He has green eyes, and looks like a young Mick Jagger. Harry Styles is sensitive because he cried once in the documentary “One direction : A Year in the Making.” He loves John Mayor, and The Rolling Stones. And I was certain that if Harry Styles really knew me, he would love me. 

I figured at around nineteen would be the most appropriate age for Harry to fall in love with me, right around his twenty fifth year of life. I spent most of my sixth grade year planning for my nineteenth birthday, 8 years from 2011. I researched universities in London, where he lived and spent his time when he wasn’t touring. I looked up apartment prices, and scholarship options. I thought about how I’d break it to my mom. I wondered if my sister and friends would miss me. But the goal was Harry Styles, and as long as we were in the same place, at the right time, the universe would do the rest, it owed me that much. 

Before then, however, I made sure Harry and I wasted no time. Harry Styles and I spent our days in his apartment, watching movies, making pancakes, and dancing in the kitchen. Our meet cutes extensive, from cafes to airports to mutual friends and parties, Harry and I seem to always have a way to find each other. Though we sometimes fight, or break up for weeks at a time, always for different reasons: cheating, distance, dependency, we always find our way back to each other. We spend the afternoons outside with our friends, we celebrate birthdays in quirky restaurants and Christmas in his family home. And our relationship goes on like this from the age of 11, into the next couple of years. 

                                                                                   --- 

While my mom and her new boyfriend drank to an excessive amount and fought in our kitchen, Harry Styles and I met for the first time at a cafe in London. He came over to my table and asked “Is this seat taken?” Stunned by my Canadian accent, he asked questions about where I was from and what brought me to London. Pretending I didn’t recognize him, he and I laugh and exchange vast conversations about his interest in sign language and my ability to speak french. He doesn’t want to leave without having gotten my number, which I sheepishly provide on the cafe napkin. 

Harry took me out to Cheshire, the county in England where he’s from, to meet his mother and sister one afternoon. We drank coffee in his mom’s backyard after Cameron Fullum made me cry, calling me “big girl” in the 8th grade hallway. I helped his mother cook dinner for all of us, and his sister Gemma told him how much she liked me. 

Though our relationship, like any real relationship, was not all rosey. We fought about trivial things like distance and harmless text messages. Once, after I had spent hours trying to break open a storage trunk and my undiagnosed OCD kept me up all night, Harry and I got into a big fight while he was on the “Take Me Home” tour. I was upset because there were pictures of him online, seemingly on a date with another girl, and he was upset because he couldn’t understand why I didn’t trust him. 

Though Harry Styles and I aren’t perfect, we spend years together happy and in love. We split our time between our home in London and wherever his tour with One Direction might take us, making only occasional trips back to Canada, to see my high school friends and my mother. We celebrate birthdays, Christmases and album releases together, my own graduation from University and the landing of my dream job. Harry and I brave the world together, leaning on and caring for each other; always at ease to know we aren’t alone. 

                                                                               --- 

Harry Styles and I break up when I’m about sixteen. It was more me than him. Though we both got busy, me with getting older, after school activities and a boy from my history and science class. Him, with the end of One Direction, a daunting solo career, and a debut album to write. With less time for each other and so many distractions, we both ended up different people, in different places unaware how we became so separate in the first place, give or take a few details. 

At the time, it felt like Harry Styles had disappeared from my life as quickly as he had come into it. I became so preoccupied that I’d left him, my dearest Harry Styles, somewhere between exam prep and Halloween parties, all too busy with my 16 year old social life to notice. All of a sudden years had passed and I’d let him go without really knowing it. 

Today, I’m reminded of him only when I see him on my TV at an awards ceremony or through my laptop, dotting around on a twitter feed. In moments like this I’m reminded of the person I knew, and the whole other person that exists, and I wonder if they are mutually exclusive.

The Harry I knew felt so real to me, I can still feel him. I hear Harry's voice and it's as familiar to me as my own mothers. I can still pick his hands out from a crowd. I can still sing every line from any One Direction album. 

Harry Styles and I existed somewhere different, in a world where I was thin and smart. In a place where my OCD didn’t plague my every thought and my mom never met her boyfriend. In a place where I felt safe. I sought refuge in Harry Styles and in return he was kind to me. Harry Styles and I were best friends. And if we’re being honest I’d probably still marry him if he’d just ask.

[thenighttrain]

tag game

i was tagged by @starsthatshines​ and @hurricanezone​, thank you 💕

1. Dogs or Cats?

DOGS

2. YouTube celebrities or normal celebrities?

normal celebrities, i don’t know any youtube celebs

3. If you could live anywhere where would that be?

ahh i don’t know! maybe somewhere in western europe because they seem to have their shit together? i also wouldn’t mind living in new zealand again

4. Disney or Dreamworks?

disney

5. Favourite childhood tv shows?

CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG, barney & friends, bananas in pyjamas, mickey mouse clubhouse, the suite life of zack and cody

6. The movie you’re looking forward to the most in 2020?

black widow and ww84

7. Favourite book you read in 2019?

ooh, probably the priory of the orange tree by samantha shannon or the binding by bridget collins

8. Marvel or DC?

marvel!

9. If you choose Marvel favourite member of the X-Men? If you choose DC favourite justice league member?

bold of you to assume that i’ve watched x-men or justice league

10. Night or day?

day

11. Favourite Pokémon?

pikachu because that used to be my nickname

12. Top 5 bands/artists?

taylor swift

niall horan

louis tomlinson

i don’t know

i don’t consistently listen to many artists

13. Top 10 books?

percy jackson and the olympians by rick riordan (i’m biased and idc)

six of crows by leigh bardugo

never let me go by kazuo ishiguro

1984 by george orwell

the hunger games series by suzanne collins

we need to talk about kevin by lionel shriver

circe by madeline miller

to kill a kingdom by alexandra christo

i feel bad choosing between books

i can’t make up my mind

14. Top 4 movies?

bold of you to assume that i like watching movies (except the mcu)

15. America or Europe?

i haven’t been to america but probably europe

16. Tumblr or twitter?

tumblr

17. Favourite vacation destination?

somewhere i haven’t been to before with cool weather + an interesting history + preferable snow capped mountains or good hikes

18. Favourite YouTuber?

i don’t youtube

19. Favourite author?

uh i really admire margaret atwood, i also love v.e. schwab and leigh bardugo

20. Tea or coffee?

tea!!! both in the literal and figurative sense 

21. OTP?

gonna be basic and say percy/annabeth from pjo and kaz/inej from soc

22. Do you play any instrument/sing?

piano and some guitar

tag people you want to know better: @christmaslightsup @daylightnletitgo @cruel-style @gorgeouss @iseerighthroughme @yohoooareinlove 

[endofjunee]

📖 sweet, sweet fate by @bottomlinsons Harry’s lived with a NSFW soulmark for almost twenty-five years now. When he finally meets the man responsible, he gives him a little piece of his mind. 🌷 Everywhere And Nowhere by @2tiedships2​ Niall took a seat and said, "Apparently Louis' downstairs neighbor is a fan of giving Louis creepy gifts. Maybe I should go introduce myself and tell him that Louis actually prefers food." "What has he given you?" Liam asked.Louis shrugged as it were no big deal. "There was a rabbit's foot keychain on the door a little after he left from introducing himself and there was a small teddy bear sitting by my door tonight. Obviously I can't prove it's from him, but they seem to have his scent. I could be wrong though." "Wow," Liam said, looking deep in thought. "That's old school." "What's old school?" Niall asked. "Giving creepy gifts?" "I've never known an alpha to do it, to be honest, but he's courting you." Louis couldn't contain his look of disbelief directed at Liam. "He's courting me. Like some sort of romantic shit they'd do in the 1800s or something?"

📖 all we can do is keep breathing by @avocadolouie “Harry, I-I’m so sorry…” Louis stutters out, trying to keep his voice level and even, to portray a depiction of strength, but with the way Harry is looking at him, staring at him like he has a personal passage way straight to Louis’ soul, it’s so hard, nearly impossible. That simple opening phrase, that short introductory acknowledgement that is often rushed out so easily, painlessly, at a safe distance. Giving a doctor the ability to portray empathy without true emotion, without feeling the full brunt and sheer force of the underlying pain itself. But Louis feels it, he feels the crushing agony laced behind the phrase, he feels the weight of the painful words slipping from his lips, the cause and effect that the three-word expression holds. The distantly empty “I’m so sorry” that doctors throw out in self-preservation, isn’t at all empty for him. Louis recognizes it, he understands it, he feels it.  Or, a fated story of two broken and battered boys who barely survived the unimaginable and how the love of one little brave girl defies all the odds and somehow puts them back together. 🌷 Baby Honey by @bringmetheharry “Lou, did you see these little baby tea boxes I found yesterday?” He tossed one towards Louis and watched as it thumped Louis in the head. Louis groaned and reached for the little box, rolling it around in his hands, “If you’re about to make a joke about me. I strongly suggest you don’t.” Harry frowned and bounced his tea bag in the water watching the liquid darken, “M’ not! I just thought the baby tea boxes were cute.” Louis’ eyes narrowed and he looked at the tiny boxes, and back at Harry. Harry watched, he could see the wheels turning inside of Louis’ mind. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Louis looked at the box once more and back at Harry Or, After four years of Marriage, Harry discovers he is expecting. He could go home and hand the ultrasound photo to his amazing husband, Louis. Or… he could have some fun with this. Only Louis catching on to all the hints Harry is dropping. Or is he? 📖 Do You Wanna Ride by @phd-mama When Liam’s attractive new business partner wins riding lessons with Harry, hilarity ensues. 🌷 Tainted Saints And Velvet Vices by @toomanylarrytears A self-fulfilling Hogwarts AU in which Louis is new to seventh year and Harry is the resident devil-may-care Slytherin set to make his entire experience a living misery. Due to less than favourable circumstances they’re forced to forge an unwilling, tentative relationship for their own survival. Repressed emotions, decidedly unromantic ballroom dancing, Triwizard Tournament tasks, creative jinxes and twilight flying above the Forbidden Forest ensue. 📖 the act of making noise by @suspendrs “Oh,” Harry frowns, waving him off. “No, I could never. I respect myself too much to sing for a living.” It feels like a slap across the face, but Louis does his best not to stiffen, blinking once and then frowning. “What?” “Those people are always so miserable, you know?” Harry says, hopping down off his stool and straightening his sweater. “There’s so much pressure on them, and they have to work so hard to keep up appearances, I can’t even imagine how difficult that is. I can’t even stand to listen to pop music today, let alone watch TV or read the magazines. It makes me so sad, thinking that those people, you know, the ones who actually went into it with heart, they only ever just wanted to make music and instead they got turned into things on leashes being paraded around to make money for other people,” he says. “Anyway, you can have the stool.”  Or, Louis’s famous, Harry has no idea who he is, and they get snowed in together at a ski lodge in Vermont. 🌷 Laundry Room by @thelovejandles The third Wednesday of the new year, Louis finds himself in the laundry room, just as he was the last Wednesday and the one before that. He’s doing pretty well with his New Year’s resolution. The only problem so far is the company he finds in the laundry room. It seems that it’s just him and one other boy who’ve chosen late Wednesday nights as prime laundry-doing time. That wouldn’t be a problem except for who the other boy is. He’s seen this boy around; it’s hard to miss the long-legged, long-haired dream that lives in Louis’ complex. He likes to wear very sheer shirts and very high boots; he is incredibly fucking gorgeous and yeah, Louis’ noticed him but he’s never spoken to him. Until tonight, apparently.  Or, Louis and Harry are both students living in the same apartment complex. They end up having the same laundry night and time. Louis can’t stop staring at Harry and he can’t figure out why Harry consistently points out Louis’ inside-out shirts, and his untied shoes, and messy hair. Enter slow burn-ish flirting, banter, awkwardness, and a lot of laundry. 📖 your rainbow will come smiling through by @hazkabaan When harry isn’t working at his stepfather’s cafe, he’s trying to make swim captain and trying to finish all his coursework on time. when he’s not doing any of those things, he’s talking to the boy he met on the oxford hopefuls subreddit. when they decide to meet, he’s elated. he finally gets the chance to meet the boy he’s been crushing on! when the day comes to meet his prince, he learns that his online crush is none other than louis tomlinson, captain of the football team and friend of his terrible stepbrothers. now harry has to decide whether telling louis the truth is the right choice or if it’s better to just let sleeping dogs lie.  Or, a cinderella story au 🌷 Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now by @allwaswell16 Louis is having a personal crisis, a third Valentine’s Day being single. Unless he meets someone this week at the high end department store he works at, he’ll be stuck going to Niall’s Valentine’s Day party–again.  Or, the one where Harry mistakes Louis for a mannequin. 📖 Falling For Me Won’t Be A Mistake by @all-these-larrythings Harry is married to his job and so overworked that he doesn’t know how to stop. All it takes is a forced Hawaiian get-a-away, the warm tropical breeze of the island, and the most beautiful, elusive man he’s ever seen to make him remember what living is like outside of work. Well, that, and the little souvenir he accidentally takes home with him. 🌷 Latching Onto You by @reminiscingintherain “Wait a sec,” Harry interrupted. “Zayn and Liam?” “Yeah, my best mates, who are getting married?” Louis said slowly, slightly baffled at the question. “This is a gay wedding?” “Is that going to be a problem?” Louis asked, his voice losing its friendly edge and taking on a decidedly icy tone.  Or, the one where Louis wants to book Harry Styles to perform at his best friends’ wedding. 📖 Face Your Fears by @sadaveniren Harry is a single father, pretending to be a beta after his alpha mated him and left him. He’s getting by just fine raising the twins when Louis walks into his bakery. Too bad him and Louis will never be a thing. 🌷 streetwise hercules by @bottomlinsons “I said,” Louis’ voice is venomous, “who the fuck is this?”  Right.  This is Harry’s part.  Or Uni AU, where Louis pretends to be Harry’s boyfriend to scare away his one night stands. 📖 Counterbalance by @louandhazaf Harry Styles loves two things: teaching ballet and racing motorcycles. Those two worlds collide when his greatest rival on the track, Louis “Tommo” Tomlinson brings his tiny siblings to Harry’s class. 🌷 cut your teeth on my heart by @turnyourankle (WIP) Louis has worked as a security officer for years, but he’s handed his first opportunity to be team lead. The assignment is nothing like what he expected. Harry has spent years trying to distance himself from the pressure of the Twist name and legacy. But it’s going to be hard to avoid when his mum hires him a bodyguard. 📖 wild love twisting all over for you by @angelichl Harry and Louis meet on the set of a video.

[thelarryficrecplace]

BOXER HARRY AU PLEASE XO

Here you go:

burning a highway to hades by demiboyharrie:

Summary: Harry is a foster kid runaway who makes his living boxing illegally, and Louis is an aimless stoner just trying to make it out of his emotionally abusive father’s clutches.

Word count: 5,366

i can’t help myself from how my heart is racing by flicker_album:

Summary: Louis is just trying to be a good friend by working out at the gym that Liam owns. He never expected to (quite literally) run into Harry, the hot boxer who sings embarrassing songs in the locker room showers.

Word count: 13,131

Strength in Softness by larrymylove:

Summary: “As soon as he saw Harry’s picture, he froze. It was a picture of Harry practicing his boxing, heavy black gloves covering his fists as he punched at a bag hanging from the ceiling. His face was focused and he looked like an absolute beast. Louis reached out and touched the picture with his finger, consistently amazed by the duality of Harry. As he started at the picture, he wondered if Harry had pink nail varnish on his toes when it was taken, and what other tattoos and secrets he had buried underneath his workout gear and hard expression.“

Or, the one in which Harry is a boxer/trainer, and teaches Louis that there can be, and is, strength in softness.

Word count: 16,193

I been feeling high when I touch your body by notasawrap:

Summary: When Louis wakes up the next day, his neck aches from sleeping on his couch, and Harry’s gone, but on the table in front of him is a post-it that says:

‘You drooled on my shirt a bit but it was really cute. I’m off to the gym, hopefully I can see you again soon.’

Harry is a boxer, Louis is an architect and Liam is the worst cupid that could ever exist.

Word count: 16,947

Small Doses (Loving You It’s Explosive) by QuickedWeen:

Summary: Louis Tomlinson finds himself at Vitality Fitness to try and turn his life around after having left his cheating boyfriend of four years. The gym’s owner, Liam, quickly becomes a good friend, but his right hand man is rude and dismissive from the get-go.Louis and Harry continue to clash all while Harry is trying to move his way up the ranks in Manchester’s amateur boxing circuit, but they can’t seem to stay away from each other.

Word count: 38,972

Fight For Me by Mie1412:

Summary: Or the one where Harry’s an underground boxer, Louis’ the prize and now Harry has to fight to protect him.

Summary: 101,547

[larryfanfiction]

Boxer! AU

👊 Box of Rain by indierection (amandamoraisa) (26k)

Louis is definitely not the next Muhammad Ali, just an illegal boxer with no prospects for the future. Harry is a hippie Uni student that in his free time informally works as a ring boy. Somehow he manages to always get tangled on the ropes and at the same time charm the pants off of all the fighters and patrons. They meet in Manchester in 1977 and, even though they don’t seem to have much in common, they… Well, they just sort of click, really.

-

The one with a friendship ruiner game of Monopoly, Harry always ending up in jail for wanting to save the world, Louis face to face with his archenemy and way too many references to 70s music.

Also staring Zayn as a brooding anarchist punk rocker, Liam as the nerdiest and nicest boxer in all Britain and Niall as a bookmarker that can easily convince people to bet fortunes, but can’t make his friends realise their mutual crush on each other.

👊 Small Doses (Loving You It’s Explosive) by QuickedWeen (38k)

Louis Tomlinson finds himself at Vitality Fitness to try and turn his life around after having left his cheating boyfriend of four years. The gym’s owner, Liam, quickly becomes a good friend, but his right hand man is rude and dismissive from the get-go. Louis and Harry continue to clash all while Harry is trying to move his way up the ranks in Manchester’s amateur boxing circuit, but they can’t seem to stay away from each other.

👊 The Blood of Words by MediaWhore (24k - WIP)

Louis Tomlinson hasn’t sworn off relationships per se. He just doesn’t think he’s quite ready for one yet, despite his therapist’s encouragements. He’s comfortable in his position as editor for Styles Publishing and he’s happy to focus on his career while he gives himself more time to heal.

Enter his CEO’s brother, a boxer with a heart of gold who is determined to carve himself a space in Louis’ life and, more importantly, his heart.

👊 Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart by Conscious_ramblings (19k)

Louis and Harry had been childhood best friends, but had been separated by evacuation as the city they grew up in was destroyed around them. Now, twelve years later, they are both back in London, and through chance they meet again. In a time when you can’t admit to being gay, for fear of arrest, admitting to your best friend that you love them seems like an insurmountable obstacle.

Featuring boxer Harry and mechanic Louis, much pining, and a lot of post war Britain

👊 i can’t help myself from how my heart is racing by flicker_album (13k)

Louis is just trying to be a good friend by working out at the gym that Liam owns. He never expected to (quite literally) run into Harry, the hot boxer who sings embarrassing songs in the locker room showers.

👊 The Battle is Now (my eyes are closed) by harrytomlinsun (10k)

Harry has a big imagination. You need one when you write your own songs, and he kind of wants to write a whole album dedicated to Louis, from the way he moves, to the thin layer of sweat that covers his golden skin and the determination that settles in his eyes. Louis makes him think of a lion cub most times, with his feathery hair, puffed chest and tiny frame. But right now he looks more like the Lion King. Harry feels as if he should get on his knees for him – for several different reasons.

Or, Harry is a struggling artist with some regrets and Louis is a street fighter with rage problems. There is a lot of dark alleys involved.

👊 The Boxer by benniejets (11k)

Harry never really did anything crazy. She lived with her father, who owned one of the best gyms in West London, with some of best looking people; female and male. She always ran her father’s errands when she wasn’t study; including bringing him his mail. When she had walked into the gym on an average Thursday, she spotted a new girl in the gym who nearly made her stop breathing.

👊 Strength in Softness by larrymylove (16k)

“As soon as he saw Harry’s picture, he froze. It was a picture of Harry practicing his boxing, heavy black gloves covering his fists as he punched at a bag hanging from the ceiling. His face was focused and he looked like an absolute beast. Louis reached out and touched the picture with his finger, consistently amazed by the duality of Harry. As he started at the picture, he wondered if Harry had pink nail varnish on his toes when it was taken, and what other tattoos and secrets he had buried underneath his workout gear and hard expression.”

Or, the one in which Harry is a boxer/trainer, and teaches Louis that there can be, and is, strength in softness.

👊 It Couldn’t Hurt by caballero78 (28k)

When his past comes to bite him on the backside, Louis Tomlinson isn’t going to go down easy. He’s stubborn, competitive and wonderfully uptight enough to deflect anyone coming in and overthrowing everything he’s been working towards for the past five years. He will fight dirty.

It’s not until he pushes a little too far does he realise he’s met his match.

👊 Fight For Me by Mie1412 (101k)

“So, we’re friends?” Louis asked timidly, his blue eyes looking up at Harry through his lashes, Harry’s chest suddenly feeling all weird.

Fuck everything. His life really was one big mess at the moment but maybe he should just go with the flow and see what happens. Couldn’t get any crazier than it already has been anyway.

“Yeah… we’re friends.”

[Or the one where Harry’s an underground boxer, Louis’ the prize and now Harry has to fight to protect him]

More Masterposts

[1dreality]

Zayn Malik was never the celebrity you thought he was. If it wasn’t already obvious from his detached, often melancholic interviews in the wake of his 2015 departure from One Direction, it will be from the title of his second solo album. The very elongated 27-track Icarus Falls is comprised of more of the sparse R&B that Malik has perfected since his first release Mind of Mine in 2016, but like its titular myth is also indebted to themes of incredible ascent and crushing decline.

A decline not of Malik’s career, it should be said, but rather of his own mental health, the album serving as both an intimate meditation on Malik’s life so far and a dire warning about the trauma of instant fame. It all leads to one obvious question: Is Zayn OK?

In an age of millennial openness and Instagram confessionals, Malik remains something of an outlier: an enormously famous and highly visible celebrity, but one whose ambiguity allows us to project much onto him. In our collective consciousness, he has been the 1D-fleeing villain, smoking cigarettes, being mean to his bandmates on Twitter and looking miserable as well as the “soft boy” pin-up, a vulnerable figure in desperate need of a hug.

Much of that ambiguity is intentional. Along with declining to tour Mind of Mine, Malik is often press-shy, choosing not to take part in TV sit-downs or play the social media game in an era in which somebody like Ariana Grande spends much of the waking day interacting with her fans on Twitter and Instagram.

And while Malik has been open about some of his past struggles, including his battle with an eating disorder at the height of his One Direction fame and consistent difficulties with anxiety, they’re often revelations that feel accidental in nature. We learn of them during an unexpected moment of truth-telling between him and a journalist, the subject quickly changed soon after, or through lyrics that are just descriptive enough to imply deep truths. Even talking about his anxiety in an essay for Time Magazine felt like a necessary course-correction after a string of cancelled gigs led to unflattering rumours about his health in the press.

Whether Malik’s public persona is intended as a protective mask or not, it is still difficult, particularly in the wake of Icarus Falls, not to feel something for him. After all, his jump from a working-class kid to an international superstar worth a reported $50 million, practically overnight, is the sort of trajectory most of us would struggle with at the age of 40, let alone at 17 when Malik auditioned for The X Factor.

Icarus Falls doesn’t cover any new sonic ground for Malik as an artist. It sees him return to the same well of threadbare, silky R&B that helped Mind of Mine easily trounce his fellow One Direction bandmates in the “best first solo record” stakes. But it does whirr with a noticeable sadness, Malik repeatedly mourns the peace of his pre-X Factor past and beats himself up for mistakes he feels that he’s made since. And when he speaks of emotional pain, it often sounds not like something confined to history, but rather something he’s dealing with every day.

“I’d rather be anywhere but here,” he sings on Good Years. “I close my eyes and see a crowd of a thousand tears / I pray to God I didn’t waste all my good years.” On Insomnia: “I’ve been roaming and strolling all in the streets / Burning my eyes red, not slept for weeks.” On Back to Life: “I been flying so long / Can’t remember what it was like to be sober.” On Satisfaction: “Nobody said this would be easy / Nobody gave me a rule book to follow.”

Even typical love songs are fatalistic in nature, talk of Armageddon running through both Flight of the Stars (“I will follow / Hold you close standing on the edge of no tomorrow”) and Tonight (“Love me like tomorrow’s never gonna come”), while much of the album nods to an unnamed great love in Malik’s life that he needs to overcome incredible odds to be with – nothing new for love songs, but given a greater weight when paired with his statements over the years. Because if we know anything about Zayn Malik, it’s that he often can’t stand being Zayn Malik.

Through much of the little press he has done, Malik has expressed unease with most of the trappings of fame, particularly the assumptions that he ought to be personable and friendly with industry figures or musical collaborators. And when it comes to One Direction, he still appears burnt by the experience. While he told Vogue in November that he has recently been able to see his time with the band as “an amazing experience,” despite the “bulls---” of what he refers to as “the machine,” he also told GQ in June that he didn’t make any actual friends during the peak of his fame: “I definitely have issues trusting people.”

In the numerous articles that pop up every winter recalling how good The X Factor used to be, clips are embedded that showcase many of its most memorable contestants, and every year it becomes that bit more shocking how much One Direction looked like children during their time on the show. The scrawny limbs, those Justin Bieber haircuts, the awkward school-talent-show bopping and shuffling. It somehow worked, enough at least to turn them into a tween phenomenon, but in hindsight it’s indefensible that they were pushed as significantly as they were.

There was always something deer-in-the-headlights about the band in its early days, a sense that at least a few of them had been pulled along for the ride as opposed to having a firm grip on the steering wheel. The hunger so visible in pop bands of similar notoriety, whether manufactured or not, wasn’t always visible – and while all of them have transitioned into stable adults who are, for the most part, comfortable in the spotlight, their jarringly different responses to fame remain clear.

It’s important to remember, for context’s sake, that Malik was always a reluctant star. Only attending his original X Factor audition after being guilted by his mother into waking up early and making the journey there, he was, in his own words to The Fader, “a lazy teen”. And even during the audition stages, he expressed reluctance to properly join in, walking off stage during a choreography rehearsal and having to be coaxed to go back. At the time, Malik’s reaction registered as a petulant strop, but now feels oddly prescient.

Of Malik’s One Direction bandmates, Harry Styles was always the most naturally inclined to superstardom – such an affable schmoozer and networker that it was quickly no longer surprising to see images of him palling around with Mick Jagger or Stevie Nicks. Liam Payne always bore the personality of someone very eager to be seen, lack of self-awareness very much included, while the perpetually chipper Niall Horan has always simply appeared very, very happy to be there. But both Malik and Louis Tomlinson have often visibly struggled, uninspired by the more performative and fraudulent elements of celebrity, or the levels of attention handed to them by Simon Cowell and co.

“What I really can’t ever get used to, or really enjoy, are these super geared-up celebrity parties,” Tomlinson told Noisey last year. “No one actually cares. You see people who are beyond self-absorbed, and that’s why it can be a dangerous place.”

Malik has echoed similar sentiments. “I don’t work well in group situations, with loads of people staring at me,” he told GQ. “And when you say ‘star’… everyone wants you to be this kind of character that owns a room or is overly arrogant or confident. I’m not that guy, so I don’t want to be a star.”

What’s odd is that, for all his claims, Malik does bear all the superficial trappings of modern stardom. He’s a fashion darling but is permanently magnetised to the covers of cool indie magazines. Furthermore, his on-again/off-again relationship with supermodel Gigi Hadid has, since 2015, become a Generation Z equivalent of Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder in its aesthetic-heavy, era-defining popularity.

But Malik is also simultaneously detached. The GQ profile, his most extensive recent interview, bears all the hallmarks of a journalist struggling to fulfil a word count because of an uncommunicative subject, writer Carrie Battan even expresses Malik’s tendency to reply to her questions in “friendly but anodyne one-liners.” Like the very best of pop idols, from Britney to Beyoncé, Malik is so compelling principally because he’s so hard to read. But this can also be a poisoned chalice: every expression of doubt or self-pity determined to be a cry for help, every revelation shaping an image that may or may not be real.

It means that listening to Icarus Falls isn’t an entirely joyous experience, Malik’s lyrics painting a picture of a young man still working through the discomfort of his sudden fame and the trauma of a moment in the spotlight marred by illness and fractured relationships, many of its scars still visible today. But it’s also a record that you can’t help but admire as a result, especially if it serves as a form of catharsis for him.

In the decade since Britney Spears was forcibly taken to the hospital surrounded by hundreds of paparazzi photographers, our collective relationship with the idea of fame has greatly altered, particularly for a generation who watched Amy Winehouse essentially die before their eyes. The one beneath them are currently coming to terms with a raft of recent pop star crises, from Demi Lovato’s overdose to the deaths of artists like Mac Miller and Lil Peep.

For all the obvious charms in Malik’s life, from his incredible fortune to a kind of artistic freedom that he never had in One Direction, you’d have to be particularly cold not to feel empathy for the sheer strangeness of his adult existence; a world of rampant, maddening attention that has historically led even the strongest of stars into tragedy.

The Zayn Malik of today is a little bruised, a little listless, his magazine profiles never complete without references to the cloud of marijuana smoke that lingers around him, or his need to lock himself away from the world. It doesn’t sound like the most ideal of outcomes for a man who calls himself a pop idol Icarus and sings with whispery detachment that he has “[flown] too close to the sun.” But we can only hope that it at least serves as a parachute.

[theprodigypenguin]

TCC Headcanons (part three)

Next part~ I want to dabble more in the other Potter-Weasley kids, so if/when I do a fourth part, I’m going to add some of them. I did a bit of them here, I’m really loving Fred, or the version of Fred that’s stuck in my head, but yea. I’m having fun making these, they’re pretty relaxing.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

While attending school, Scorpius had a tendency to talk to the ghosts at Hogwarts; pretty much all of them.

He even became decent friends with Myrtle and would talk to her about bullies and how to deal with them.

He's an angel honestly and even Helena Ravenclaw loves him.

When he got on the train to Hogwarts for his fifth year he gave the Trolley Witch a homemade friendship bracelet to apologize for jumping out of the train the year before.

For the next three years on the train he would talk to her and hold conversations with her whenever she stopped at his and Albus' compartment.

He learned her name and asked her to tell at least one fun story when she was with them (he especially enjoyed the stories about school-age Dumbledore, Newt Scamander sneaking animals onto the train, and the Mauraders, just everything about them).

At one point he bought candy off the trolley and gave her a piece to enjoy because she sells them all the time but she should also be able to enjoy them once in a while.

She didn't eat it of course (idk does she even eat) but she keeps it in her pocket at all times and never takes her bracelet off.

Whenever Scorpius started regularly visiting the Potter's after their fourth year he would always end up washing dishes and doing random chores simply because he's just that sweet and nice.

And Albus would end up roped into the work because Scorpius is showing him up around his parents that's not cool.

Ginny: Al can you take the trash out please?

Albus: In a minute mum.

Ginny: I bet Scorpius would take it out when I asked.

Albus: Gimme the fuckin trash bag.

Scorpius and Albus commandeered the sofa under the window in the Slytherin common room during their second year.

By then no one wanted to sit with them anyway so no one ever took their couch and didn't go near it.

Even passing dumb rumors like "if you sit there you'll be cursed as Voldemort's trump card forever" or "that sofa saps all your magic, if you sit there you'll turn into a squib like Potter".

The window looks out into the Black Lake, and Scorpius has taken to trying to communicate with the merpeople who occasionally swim up to the enchanted glass.

Mainly he communicates in pictures, drawing the merpeople and holding his sketches up to the window so the merfolk can enjoy them.

He's not as good an artist as Albus of course but he tries.

And on occasion the merpeople will leave little gifts for Scorpius sitting on the window sill just outside in the water.

Of course Scorpius can't reach them, but it makes him happy to see the little collection of rocks and snails sitting there.

During their first year, Scorpius started getting pushed into closets and locked in.

A group of older Gryffindor's (friends of James), would steal his wand and lock him in for hours until someone found him (usually Filch or Neville).

He never mentions the names of the students so they never get in trouble.

And teaches himself a bit of wandless magic so by fifth year he can open the closet door without his wand.

James is the oldest but acts like quite a goofball the majority of the time.

He has a lot of trouble telling people "no" because he likes being helpful.

He wears his heart on his sleeve and bursts with positive energy, which draws people to him.

Has a bit of trouble taking things seriously.

He has excellent grades, and becomes Captain of the Quidditch team during his fifth year at Hogwarts.

Laughing is his favorite thing to do, and can usually be heard above the roar of voices in the Great Hall during meals.

He especially enjoys making other people laugh.

Everyone who meets him likes him, even the people who don't like him seem to respect him enough to tolerate him.

He's friends with pretty much everyone, which is stressful at times because sometimes he just doesn't know who he can talk to.

Having a lot of friends is nice, but it sort of blinds him from knowing who can keep a secret and who can't, so there are very few at the school who actually KNOW the real James Potter.

Teddy is one of the only people who knows him for him, and accepts him for it, and encourages him to be exactly who he is.

One of his closest friends is his cousin and dorm-mate Fred (jr).

Goofball he may be, if James is angered, he is absolutely terrifying.

Almost scarier than his mum when she's mad (and that's fucking petrifying).

He teases his siblings and cousins to death, but honestly loves Lily and Albus more than ANYTHING in the world, and would die for them without any hesitation.

He's a Hugger™ and tends to cling to the people he embraces (basically incapable of giving a normal hug, but most people don't care).

Lily returns all of his very frequent embraces, and clings to him as much as he clings to her (they do that cute penguin walk where they sway back and forth and shuffle because they don't want to let go).

Albus, on the other hand, tries desperately to escape whenever James hugs him, so usually he ends up hugged from behind and drags James along down the hall or room trying to get away.

It never, ever works, there is no escape, so he ends up just standing or sitting with a murderous expression on his face while James snuggles him.

His hugs with Fred consist of him throwing himself into Fred's arms so he's being carried bridal style (or Fred jumps into James' arms, one of them usually ends up being carried for some reason).

Hugs with Teddy are similar to hugs with Lily, but almost more tender. He likes keeping his arms around Teddy's neck and standing on Teddy's shoes to make himself tall enough to reach his shoulders.

James and Albus used to be very close, before Albus was sorted into Slytherin, when they were younger.

They'd all fall asleep curled on the couch together.

James would give Albus piggyback rides if he ever so much as stubbed his toe.

After a nightmare Albus would toddle into James' room and cuddle with him.

He loved to cook with them, despite how terrible Albus was at it, and ate every burnt cookie they offered him.

Lily adores him honestly, and secretly, Albus does as well, because James is an amazing brother.

At one point in time, the Gryffindor Quidditch team was absolutely dominated by the Potter-Weasley clan.

James - Captain and Chaser

Rose - Chaser

Louis - Chaser

Roxanne - Beater

Fred - Beater

Hugo - Keeper

Lily - Seeker

They were one of the best teams to come from Gryffindor and didn't lose a single game.

Teddy LOVES singing.

I honestly imagine he sounds something like Nick Jonas.

He can also play any instrument that's put in front of him.

He likes covering modern muggle bands (Imagine Dragons, American Authors, Panic! At the Disco, Nick Jonas, Adam Lambert, Louis Tomlinson, The Script, One Republic, etc) but also makes his own music and enjoys older bands like ACDC, Bon Jovi, etc.

Scorpius gets along with Mrs Norris and even does his best to start up conversations with Filch.

At one point Albus, somewhat desperate, confides in Filch about people calling him a Squib and asks for advice (cuz who else would even understand).

Filch gives crappy advice though.

Teddy's "Moon Sickness" consists of mainly migraines.

They start off small but grow worse with age.

They can be so bad he vomits, gets nose bleeds, or blacks out entirely, and can remain unconscious for days at a time.

We only have three confirmed godparents but here is my complete personal take:

James - Ron and Hermione

Albus - Neville and McGonagall (that's what I fucking said 👌)

Lily - Hagrid and Luna (fucking fight me about this one I fucking dare you)

Scorpius doesn't have godparents, but Albus said they could share Neville.

Harry is Teddy's only official godparent, but he calls Ginny his God-Mum because it makes her smile.

Harry and Ginny are also Rose's godparents.

George and Angelina are Hugo's.

Percy is Fred's (junior) godfather (George felt it was absolutely necessary).

[louisupdates]

“Last show of the year tonight, London!” Louis Tomlinson told a roaring sold-out crowd of 2,000 people at Shepherd’s Bush Empire last night. The show at the iconic venue in the UK’s capital was a special one-night-only gig to celebrate the release of his sophomore album, Faith In The Future. Released last month, it became Tomlinson’s first solo chart-topper in his home country.

After wrapping up his first 81-date world tour across five continents in September, last night’s setting was far more intimate than what the Doncaster-born star has been used to recently. Welcomed by a room full of screams and handmade signs, Tomlinson kicked off his 12-song set with “The Greatest,” a song he previously told EUPHORIA. he always envisioned as a show opener during the creative process of his record. Keeping with the high energy, Tomlinson dived straight into “Kill My Mind” before singing the Arctic Monkeys-infused “Written All Over Your Face,” an obvious career highlight and a smash hit waiting to happen. Out of all the One Direction songs Tomlinson could have sang, it was the heartfelt “Night Changes” he chose to put his own spin on. Vamped up with a full band production, his solo version was another reminder as to why “Night Changes” remains top tier. As the show continued, Tomlinson made sure to slow down the pace with the mellow “That’s the Way Love Goes” before closing with “Saturday.”

Venturing out on your own after being a member of one of the most famous pop groups of all time is not the easiest challenge to overcome. For Tomlinson, it appears his recent journey as a solo artist is on an all-time high and going just the way he hoped. With so much touring experience over the past 10 years, the 30-year-old is going down as a seasoned performer who keeps getting better and better. Never one to shy away from his admiration for his fans, the consistent crowd interaction in between each of the songs proved that performing on stage is where Tomlinson shines the most and what he enjoys doing more than anything else.

With numerous chants for “Angels Fly,” a song from the new record that has yet to be performed, that might be fans’ only critique of the special show. While they wait to witness it live with bated breath, there is always his 2023 arena tour for that song to get the justice it deserves. C’mon Louis!

Full set list:

“The Greatest”

“Kill My Mind”

“Written All Over Your Face”

“We Made It”

“Bigger Than Me”

“Night Changes”

“Copy of a Copy of a Copy”

“Out of My System”