#he's growing his hair out so he can be a transplant for harry

[awesomefringey]

He had a hair implant

Stop it! He can use my hair for a wig. I don’t care, man.

I spoke to someone who had a hair transplant and it looked gruesome. The part where the new hair follicles had to grow in were full of badges of old skin and blood and he wasn’t allowed to shower for weeks. And not only the new hairline looked like a battlefield but also the back of his head where they took out the hair. Everyone acts like Harry buzzed off his hair, then went to The Sphere, then got a hair transplant and hid it for weeks and weeks under a beanie when it’s simply not the way this works. No sun, no soap, no hat - for weeks. And then you have to cut your hair again and again so the newly grown in follicles can catch up with the rest of the hair. You can see the new hair line for a long time before it’s fully set into the rest.

It’s not the case with Harry. He buzzed it off, wore a beanie all the time, grew it out evenly ever since the first shave, showed up with no big difference on his head. Or at least I don’t see it.

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

I know I am late but HS shaving his head has to be the funniest but smartest thing he did look wise for a long time. If he plays his cards right and this is a big IF he will get a hair transplant and his hair will grow more healthy and curly (which is what his brand is all about) and he can get some fans interested again. Though if he’s delusional enough to think he looks good bald then it’s over for him especially if the moustache is still there 😭😭😭 Also how is Tay Russell still standing him when she is literally an it girl and can objectively do so much better

Harry’s looks are fading so fast that even his fans make memes of him online.

It’s always funny to see Harry Styles in public with a girlfriend because it’s obvious he loves his own image above any human being. I don’t think you can find any video of him where he isn’t obsessed with posing. That’s not a criticism, it’s just an objective fact.

The ladies who agree to be his girlfriends agree for one reason— to become more popular in the short term. No serious person will take this role. Good luck to Taylor; maybe she’ll come out of it happier than the rest, even if Harry releases a few songs sexualizing her.

[gambleddesires]

Welcome to Aurora Bay, [HENLEY REYES]! I couldn’t help but notice you look an awful lot like [SOFIA CARSON]. You must be the [TWENTY SIX] year old [MUSICIAN]. Word is you’re [INDEPENDENT] but can also be a bit [STUBBORN] and your favorite song is [NIGHTMARE BY HALSEY]. I also heard you’ll be staying in [AURORA BAY DRIVE]. I’m sure you’ll love it!

ABOUT HENLEY: I'm no sweet dream but I'm a hell of a night.

CHARACTER BASICS

FULL NAME: Henley Elena Reyes

NICKNAME(S): Hen, Henny

AGE: Twenty-Six

GENDER & PRONOUNS: Cis Woman, She/Her

FACE CLAIM: Sofia Carson

EYE COLOR: Hazel

HAIR COLOR: Dark Brown

HEIGHT: 5′4″

WEIGHT: 117 lbs.

DATE OF BIRTH: February 23rd, 1996

ZODIAC SIGN: Pisces

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English & Spanish

HOGWARTS HOUSE: Ravenclaw

OCCUPATION: Musician

HOBBIES: Singing, Songwriting, Guitar, Piano, Photography, Cooking, Archery

HOMETOWN: Aurora Bay

RESIDENCE: Aurora Bay Drive

TIME IN TOWN: All her life, left for a 5 years to write two albums and a world tour (visited), now returned to move into a new home in Aurora Bay Drive

FAMILY

MOTHER: Camila Reyes (née Garcia)

FATHER: Julian Reyes †

CHARACTER HISTORY [TW: FATAL ILLNESS, DEATH, DEPRESSION, ADDICTION, DRUGS, CAR ACCIDENT]

Growing up it didn’t take long for Henley to learn to not take things for granted. At first things were normal, two loving parents that wanted the best their daughter and a warm family dinner prepared each night. Her father was always picking up extra work shifts, he was the hardest working person Henley had ever seen. He often surprised Camila with flowers and secretly shared chocolate candy bars with Henley while dinner was cooking, a secret that was promised to remain between them always. One night Julian looked more tired than usual, Henley being only 4 years of age didn’t think anything of it, but that tired look in his eyes never went away. With it came joint pain and a rash that resembled a butterfly which eventually made his ability to work impossible, he wanted to keep fighting it. He was a stubborn man that liked to do things himself so when a few sharp pains in his chest sent him to the hospital he figured it was stress and instead was blindsided by a diagnosis of lupus. Henley was 10.

The girl felt helpless as they moved a hospital bed into their small two bedroom home, her mother was forced to pick up night shifts at a local diner as they began to be covered in medical bills, and that meant Henley was alone with her sick father. It was her turn to take care of him and sneak him sweets until he was taken from them permanently (She was 13), the effects of his illness attacked his liver and they couldn’t afford a transplant of a new one.

She started to collect her feelings in a journal, figuring it was the best way to get her thoughts out while she was home alone. She went a long period of time without an appetite, only forcing herself to eat dinner so her friend and their family wouldn’t ask questions. After a while she was able to save up money and buy her first guitar allowing her creativity to soar by transferring her words and poems into songs. That’s when her appetite came back.

Watching her father transform into someone she didn’t recognize took a toll on her, her home didn’t feel like a safe place anymore with every happy memory tarnished by disaster. Henley found a lot of solace next door but more often than not she’d rather be at school. She’d always done so well in school, her grades plummeting until she was offered a tutor who helped her believe she could get back on track.

It was her writing that landed her a music theory and composition scholarship for songwriting and that’s when she met Rhett Harris. Henley was reluctant to begin a relationship with him, afraid of how fast things could change if she let herself be vulnerable but their mutual love of music brought them closer together in more ways than one. She happily joined his band as their lead singer and ultimately fell in love with him. Their chemistry was noted by everyone who came to watch and a few music scouts got word and offered them a contract and tour.

Tragedy struck at the worst possible moment, one night after practice her boyfriend got into a terrible car accident that left him in the hospital with an arm and  both legs broken. Hearing the news made her feel like there were a thousand pound weights attached to her ankles, slowly dragging herself back into the bright place that terrified her the most. She couldn’t stand to see him like that, but she couldn’t bear the thought of him sitting in that bed alone either.

Their band was down a drummer and deadlines were approaching, they needed to make a decision before the offer was rejected and they didn’t have another one. Henley didn’t want to live out their dream without him so she waited, but as the months went by all she could hear were her father’s words in the back of her head telling her to chase her dreams, life was short and nothing was guaranteed. The brunette fought back and forth with herself for nearly a year and it was now or never. She packed up her things and wrote Rhett a lengthy goodbye note, she knew she’d never be able to leave if she looked him in the eyes, and she signed that contract. It worked out in her favor, now two published albums later and a tour that got an exclusive world addition she was returning home. Henley paid to check her mother into rehab and pay off the mortgage of her childhood home, but she couldn’t go back there. She found a nice place for sale in Aurora Bay Drive and now she’s looking to catch up with all the people she left behind, some she figured would be happier to see her than others.    

HEADCANONS

Her mother became very reliant on her once it was just the two of them requiring her to do the household chores so she was able to focus on work to pay the bills.

Along with playing music she loves cooking, she had a lot of free time to learn all of her father’s favorite recipes. 

She saved up the change from grocery trips to buy her first guitar from a secondhand shop.

She left behind a handwritten note doing her best to explain why she was leaving to Rhett. The two still haven’t had an actual conversation about that night & she regrets leaving him.

She met her best friend from across the hall while her father was sick, usually sneaking out when he fell asleep to get that sense of normal of a family dinner back.

She hates hershey’s chocolate, after her dad was gone she could no longer stand the taste.

Has a fear of hospitals/hospital beds.

Believes that life is too short to not go after something you want. (Words her father would tell her every night.)

She’s working on her third album and hopes being home will spark new ideas.

One night she caught her mother going through her father’s belongings and thought she was reminiscing but it was revealed that Camila was stealing his old pain medication so she’d be able to work for longer at time. She swore she’d stop taking them and never did, once Henley was able to move into a college dorm room she never went back.

WANTED CONNECTIONS

you’re like a sister: (open) the two grew up in ocean crest apartments, living next door and taking turns on who’s place they’d reside for the night. they hit it off almost instantly and became inseparable. they haven’t seen each other since before she went on tour but facetime every night.

the ex she left behind: (rhett harris) henley never saw herself falling so hard for someone until she met rhett. it felt like something straight out of a movie, the pair loving and creating music together while planning for their future. from there she never imagined having to choose her passion over the love of her life, but her father’s words of telling her to chase her dreams ultimately signed her name on the dotted line. she regrets the way everything happened, his accident, but getting to play her music for the world has been truly magical for her. 

the one who helped her see graduation: (open) high school tutor.

will they, won’t they

hookups

friends with benefits

people who have heard her music

mutual lovers of music

party friends

childhood friends

bad influence

good influence

party friends

friends from some kind of parental loss support group?

anything :)

[inkie80]

I spoke to someone who had a hair transplant and it looked gruesome. The part where the new hair follicles had to grow in were full of badges of old skin and blood and he wasn’t allowed to shower for weeks. And not only the new hairline looked like a battlefield but also the back of his head where they took out the hair. Everyone acts like Harry buzzed off his hair, then went to The Sphere, then got a hair transplant and hid it for weeks and weeks under a beanie when it’s simply not the way this works. No sun, no soap, no hat - for weeks. And then you have to cut your hair again and again so the newly grown in follicles can catch up with the rest of the hair. You can see the new hair line for a long time before it’s fully set into the rest.

It’s not the case with Harry. He buzzed it off, wore a beanie all the time, grew it out evenly ever since the first shave, showed up with no big difference on his head. Or at least I don’t see it.

I never believed he had a hair transplant.

His hairline is the same as it was.

And like you said, if he had a transplant he wouldn’t be able to wear anything on his head for a long time.

[jaerie]

Alpha Seeking Alpha (E, 4k, abo) Maybe it’s taboo, but Louis can’t stop thinking about a strong alpha holding him down and filling him with a knot. Louis may be alpha himself yet there’s a corner of the internet where he can get what he wants. He finally has the courage to do it.

And the Truth Shall Set You Free (Maybe…) (E, 18k, abo) Betism: A religion based on the belief that the beta gender has been chosen by God to protect and defend the purity and dignity of the human race by resisting and condemning the lustful ways and flawed biology of the alpha and omega

Harry is a Betist and Louis is an alpha who runs with a bad crowd. This is what happens when two worlds collide.

Captain Jack (E, 32k, abo) Louis has been searching for something and Harry is there to give it to him. Drugs, sex, disappointment, and the tangled web they’ve woven that keeps them trapped in the same cycle.

Everything Comes Back To You (10k, abo) Louis was only seven when he found himself in a hospital bed alone and scared, confused about what was happening. When another little boy climbed into his bed to comfort him, Louis never thought that they would be meeting again later in life. He also never imagined that their roles would be reversed the second time around.

Everything I need I get from you (M, 10k, abo) In a world where music and sound are just as vital to health as food, Harry is stuck in a town that thinks professional music is a scam and a relationship he never wanted. One chance event changes his life.

Going Live (E, 15k) Harry has only done this cam thing a handful of times when another camboy pops in to view his stream and unintentionally stirs things up a bit.

Or Louis and Harry are both camboys for some extra cash and meet each other in an unconventional way

I’m Sure It Happens To All Alphas (E, 4k, abo) “It’s okay. I’m sure it happens to all alphas at some point,” the omega beside him said which only embarrassed him even more.

The thing was that this was not how Louis expected their first time together to play out. Especially after he’d been fantasizing about it for so long.

But let’s jump back to the beginning.

or Louis has trouble popping a knot

Just Jump (E, 10k, abo) Finally, after years of suffering alone, the insurance plan at Harry’s new job covered omega heat services. As a grown omega adult, it finally felt like the right time to try it out. And, since taking an entire week of heat leave would really put him behind at work, using a service to shorten it seemed like a responsible decision. At least that’s how he rationalized it. He was nervous about his decision but it was too late. The doorbell rang.

“Hi!” The alpha said again and Harry took the hand he offered and shook it firmly. “I’m Louis from Omega Services. It’s nice to meet you.”

20 more fics below... 

Knot Safe For Work (E, 6k, abo) The world is magical, Louis is a wizard, Harry is a Were, there are spells for lube and supernatural kinks are definitely a thing.

Merry Birthday (10k, abo) Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson have unfortunate soulmarks branded onto their skin. The first words their soulmate will ever speak to them are two of the most common greetings, so common that they don’t even notice when it finally happens for real.

A Christmas soulmate AU.

OmegaVision (E, 24k, abo) Tomlin Networks Presents: OmegaVision starring Louis Tomlinson! The world’s first 24/7 reality channel available in over 150 countries worldwide following the life of the first male omega born in over a century. Follow Louis through his daily routine, the ups and downs of growing up or just leave him on for comfort. There are many reasons to tune in but, no matter what yours may be, there’s always a part of Louis that is just like you!

Or a Truman Show au that nobody asked for where Louis is Truman and Harry just wants to be his mate

Out of the Wild (E, 21.5k, abo) Louis has spent most of his life as a wolf in the wild, Harry has spent most of his life as a human in the city. Their worlds collide during the audition process for the hottest new singing competition. What happens next should have expected.

Out With The Old, In With The New (E, 7k, abo) Harry becomes the pack’s new alpha and Louis can’t wait to be bred

The Post-War BP (E, 18k, abo) The eight year war has left the country’s birthrate severely stunted with a lack of virile alphas left to bring it back up. To ensure the survival of the country, the government opens The Breeding Program where young omegas can apply to carry an alpha’s child in exchange for benefits. Louis’ family is struggling and the BP is one of the only ways to secure a roof over their heads. Harry was drafted at the age of eighteen and spent six years of his life defending a country he doesn’t recognize when he returns home. The government made the bed but it’s Harry that has to lie in it.

Restless Lane (E, 15k, abo) Louis had grown used to his boring life back in Mississippi as a stand-in father figure to his siblings. He never expected his childhood friend to show up on his lawn with the heat of summer or that he would remind Louis how much of himself he'd tucked away and neglected. He also never expected to find himself caught up in a tangled web of feelings or secrets that just might break him. Maybe he had never known Harry at all.

Save Some Luck For Me (E, 10.5k, abo) Louis arrives at the 2018 Winter Olympics to make history as the first omega to win a gold medal at the games. Harry, his oiled up crush from the Summer Olympics, just happens to show up to sabotage him, but maybe helps him win in the end.

Sisterwives (E, 33k, abo) This was it, the moment Louis had been waiting for his entire life. Giddy excitement bubbled up as he held hands and stared up at his soon-to-be alpha and husband and grinned. The ceremony was small and simple, but Louis didn’t mind. Fresh flowers pinned into his hair and a brand new outfit was all he needed to feel special in front of their few witnesses. It was just some members of his family and a few of the church elders in attendance as was customary for any marriage beyond the first wife within the faith.

First wives were the ones to have elaborate weddings with the whole community involved. An alpha’s first wedding was a celebration of an their coming of age, his first steps into fulfilling God’s prophecy. There were many glories for an omega that came with being a first wife but also many responsibilities. Louis had never aspired to be a first wife or even a second. He wasn’t experienced enough to be the leader of an alpha’s many wives and children and he didn’t think he’d be up to the task.

Louis was just fine in the position he was stepping into as the seventh.

Or Louis thinks he's getting everything he's ever dreamed of. Harry helps him find what makes him truly happy.

Stay Close, Hold Steady (E, 27k, abo) Found on the banks of the Mississippi as an toddler, Harry goes on a quest to find his biological family. Louis tries to be supportive, but maybe he just doesn’t want to be left behind.

Take What’s Mine (E, 15k, abo) Years after he is kidnapped, his life altered forever, Louis goes through the motions in a way that barely feels like living. Harry is a wild card, a forbidden fruit that Louis swore off of before he even had a chance to experience it. Maybe, in the end, Harry holds the key to being reborn. Louis just has to be open to the idea first.

Tell Me That You Want It Cause I Already Know (E, 3.8k, abo) Who knew all it would take was some good ole porn for Louis to discover his friend, Harry, is a wolf and for it to awaken an urge that would bring them together in a way he hadn’t anticipated.

Tiny Exaggeration (E, 4k, abo) Louis is frustrated that they've been dating for months and still haven't taken their relationship to the next level. Sometimes the foolishness of the past lingers in the present. Louis wants that to change.

Was It All Fake? (E, 4k, abo) Unmated omegas are second class citizens. Expected to provide for themselves yet paid so little that they often are overworked or forced to sell their bodies just to keep from starving. Louis’ luck turns around when he meets Harry, the rich heir to a fortune. After their bonding ceremony, things aren’t exactly what Louis expected.

Where Do We Go Now (E, 10k, abo) Louis goes off to college ready to start a fresh life away from the oppressive alphas of his pack. The odds aren’t in his favour when his new dorm mate turns out to be an alpha. Louis hates alphas.

The Wilds (E, 13k, abo) The creatures that Louis observed every day weren’t exactly human, but yet they were. Researchers had plucked some of them from their secluded island and transplanted them into an enclosure against their will like a bunch of zoo animals. Louis didn’t think they were. But he was only paid to do the yardwork, he didn’t have any say about the wilds that lived there. That was until an unfortunate accident changed his life forever and made one wild in particular his top priority.

Woke Up Feeling Knotty (E, 8k, abo) Beta Louis has a kink for knotting and the secret aesthetic porn blog he runs about it is more than proof. When he accidentally finds out his alpha best friend Harry is one of his biggest fans, he knows he has to come clean after everything that has already happened between them. Harry just might be willing to help him out anyway.

You Gotta Swim, Swim For Your Life

Swim When It Hurts - Part One (M, 12k, abo) Harry never thought he would find himself battling cancer. Louis never thought he would find himself so attached to one of his patients.

Swim When It Hurts - Part Two (E, 6k, abo) Harry never thought he would find himself battling cancer. Louis never thought he would find himself so attached to one of his patients. Neither one of them thought they would find love in such an unlikely place.

Swim When It Hurts - Part Three (E, 7k, abo) Harry never thought he would find himself battling cancer. Louis never thought he would find himself so attached to one of his patients. Neither one of them thought they would find love in such an unlikely place. Maybe things weren’t ideal, but finding strength in a new kind of normal together may be just what they need.

[tabloidtoc]

National Enquirer, August 10

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Kanye West’s psycho ward meltdown -- $2 billion divorce bombshell with Kim Kardashian 

Page 2: Kelly Clarkson still wears wedding ring after split -- she’s being wracked by uncertainty as she moves toward finalizing her divorce 

Page 3: Baby arrives as Justin Timberlake fights to hold on to Jessica Biel -- second child for couple shaken by his flirty past 

Page 4: Prince Jackson plans to continue his father Michael Jackson’s creative vision by making a movie the King of Pop wrote before his 2009 death, Duane “Dog” Chapman opened up about the final days of his beloved wife Beth and tearfully admitted she wouldn’t even look at him because she knew he had given up 

Page 5: Danica Patrick dumped NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers over his failure to commit to marriage and rumors he was crushing on her pal Shailene Woodley 

Page 6: Jessica Simpson just turned 40 and she’s starting a new chapter in her life by writing another tell-all and it’s promising to be even juicier, royal outcast Prince Andrew exploded in fury after his family publicly snubbed him at his own daughter’s wedding 

Page 7: Hollywood transplant Prince Harry is losing his hair and his image-conscious wife Meghan Markle is pushing him to do what it takes to get it back -- Meghan has Harry so self-conscious about his ever-expanding dome that he hates to even leave the house without a cap to cover it

Page 8: Cover Story -- Kanye West’s rants ripping $2 billion marriage to Kim Kardashian apart -- he accused Kim of cheating and trying to lock him in a psych ward

Page 10: Hot Shots -- Becca Tobin walks her dog, Prince George turns 7, Justin Theroux on a bike, Taye Diggs with a football in his backyard

Page 11: Martha Stewart posted a sexy selfie snapped in her swimming pool in which she looks decades younger than 79 and probably had lip filler and a face-lift and Botox and filler in her cheeks, fired Wild ‘N Out star Nick Cannon has terrified fans with hints he’s considered suicide

Page 12: Straight Shuter -- Ireland Baldwin surfing (picture), both Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton have been married before so they have no illusions about marriage lasting a lifetime and will have a $200 million prenup, Jada Pinkett Smith’s entanglement with a young singer could lead to a reality TV show for her and husband Will Smith, Jennifer Aniston has been busy writing and her memoir will be worth megabucks, Katie Holmes is growing close to Thandie Newton after she said she was so scared of Tom Cruise while working on Mission: Impossible 2 

Page 13: MacGyver star Lucas Till has confessed to being suicidal after its top executive Peter Lenkov hammered him with body shaming and abuse and Lenkov was fired after Lucas filed a lengthy complaint with CBS about the toxic atmosphere he claimed was fostered by his boss over the hit show’s four seasons, Kevin Hart is driving his pregnant wife loco during lockdown

Page 14: True Crime 

Page 16: Scientology Under Siege -- rape charges, suicide tragedy and defections rock the sci-fi religion 

Page 19: Divorced dad Russell Crowe regrets letting his kids take a back seat to his high-flying Hollywood career but moving forward he has vowed to be a better dad to his two teenage sons, Alex Trebek is entering a new and possibly final phase of chemotherapy and he knows this may be his last shot at survival 

Page 20: Hugh Hefner’s widow Crystal Hefner is finally getting the physical attention she missed throughout her May-December marriage

Page 21: New sex scandal rocks Fox News -- women accusing fired anchor Ed Henry say network still protects predators 

Page 22: Health Watch 

Page 25: Real Life 

Page 26: A former lover of Jeffrey Epstein’s madam Ghislaine Maxwell is willing to testify she bragged about owning sex tapes with underage looking girls and using them to blackmail high-profile men 

Page 28: Some stars are just plane crazy -- how bad behavior got them grounded -- Christian Slater, Diana Ross, Lamar Odom 

Page 29: Selma Blair, Alec Baldwin, Courtney Love, Jonathan Rhys Meyers 

Page 32: Breaking Bad star Johnny Ortiz is behind bars and facing life in prison on attempted-murder charges, model Bar Refaeli is a convicted tax cheat and was sentences to nine months of community service while her mother will be sent to prison for 16 months, Mickey Rourke came out swinging against Robert De Niro stemming from Mickey’s claim the De Niro kept him from being cast in last year’s hit mob flick The Irishman 

Page 34: Chrissy Teigen displayed her downsized chest on social media complete with gruesome surgical scars to clap back at online trolls who doubted she had her implants removed, Sonja Morgan is boasting how she got rid of her saggy face and wrinkly neck by going under the knife 

Page 36: In a friendship forged in hell killer dad Chris Watts has become behind bar besties with double murderer Jake Patterson the kidnapper of Jayme Closs 

Page 38: Halle Berry is keeping fans on their toes after posting a suggestive photo of her playing footsie with a mystery man, Hollywood Hookups -- Nicki Minaj and husband Kenneth “Zoo” Petty are expecting, Colton Underwood and Lucy Hale dating, Vinny Guadagnino and Francesca Farago dating 

Page 42: Red Carpet Stars -- Cate Blanchett in Armani Prive 

Page 45: Spot the Differences -- Christina Vidal and Will Sasso and Jane Curtin on United We Fall 

Page 47: Odd List 

[superfoodish]

Can Hair Loss Be Stopped?

Don’t Lose Hair Men and hair loss seems always to have been a losing combination. Although male pattern hair loss is very common—two out of three men will experience it—and is hardly ever associated with serious health risks, it’s hard to imagine a common condition that is met with more anxiety. But much of the stigma surrounding male hair loss is due to half-truths and exaggerations. So if you start noticing there’s not as much hair up there, don’t pull out the rest of it in worry—take our quiz below and learn what’s going on with your body and how you can slow the follicle fallout.

If you’re losing hair, it’s male pattern baldness. False. It’s true that for 95 percent of men who lose their hair, male pattern baldness, or androgenetic alopecia, is the culprit. With this condition, an enzyme called 5-alpha reductase converts testosterone to dihydro testosterone, a hormone that causes hair follicles to shut down hair production. Male pattern baldness can begin appearing in men in their 20s and usually progresses slowly from the front or apex of the scalp, or both. But male pattern baldness is not the only cause of male hair loss—and it’s important to talk to your physician or dermatologist to determine the cause, because it can point to certain health problems. For example, if your hair is falling out quickly and in small patches, it may be a sign of alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease in which the body attacks the hair. Stress can also lead to rapid hair loss. In these cases, the hair usually regrows after several months. Other causes include a severe ailment or major surgery; protein, vitamin B, or iron deficiencies; medication complications; or thyroid disease. It’s your mother’s fault. False. Male pattern baldness is a largely genetic characteristic that can be inherited from either your mother or your father. It’s even possible to acquire the hair-loss gene from both parents. In fact, the same gene also causes hair loss in women, although because of hormonal differences, women tend to lose their hair in small amounts all over their scalp. There’s hope. True. Here’s the good news: In many cases, male pattern baldness can be treated. In the early stages, many conventional physicians prescribe either minoxidil lotion, applied topically, or finasteride, taken orally. These medications have been shown to slow hair loss in many patients and, in some cases, cause hair to grow back. According to Robert Brodell, MD, professor of internal medicine in the dermatology section at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, complications associated with both drugs are minimal, but there are downsides. Not only are the medications expensive, but they only work for as long as you take them.

“I tell my patients that they are going to be on one of those medicines for 5 years or 10 years or 15 years, until they are married and have kids and don’t care anymore,”

says Brodell.

“And then when they stop their medicine, we fully expect them to start losing their hair again.”

Great strides are being made in the field of hair transplants, but like any invasive therapy, these procedures are expensive and time-consuming and should not be undertaken lightly. If surgery or drug therapies aren’t for you, a number of naturopathic remedies might offer similar results—without the high cost. Keith F. Zeitlin, ND, a naturopathic physician with a private practice in Connecticut, recommends the herbs saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) and stinging nettle root (Urtica dioica), and the supplement beta-sitosterol, which all appear to work similarly to conventional medicines by shutting down the enzyme 5-alpha reductase’s creation of dihydrotestosterone, the hormone that ceases hair production. “If we can inhibit that enzyme, we can actually inhibit hair loss,” says Zeitlin. (For more information, see “Herbs and Supplements for Hair Loss,” below.) Another option is mesotherapy, a treatment in which very short needles are used to inject homeopathic remedies; vitamins such as biotin; or conventional medicines such as minoxidil just underneath the surface of the scalp. “The skin is used as a natural time-release system,” says practitioner Harry Adelson, ND, a Utah-based pain-medicine specialist. “Whatever it is you are injecting remains in the area for up to a week and continually penetrates down into the deeper tissue.” You can live a hair-healthy lifestyle. True. Although there’s no apparent validity to the old wives’ tales that sexual activity or excessive hat wearing can cause hair loss, other lifestyle choices may indeed hurt your hair. In fact, it might make more sense to keep that hat on; a study conducted at the University Hospital of Zurich in Switzerland proposed that ultraviolet rays from the sun might injure hair follicles (Dermatology, 2003, vol. 207, no. 4). How you clean and care for your hair may also be a factor in hair loss. According to the American Academy of Dermatology, too many chemical treatments such as dying, straightening, and bleaching, as well as excessive washing, towel drying, and brushing, may weaken or damage your hair, causing it to break or fall out.

Those worried about hair loss should also reevaluate their diets. Zeitlin warns that very large doses of vitamin A can lead to vitamin A toxicity and eventual hair loss. He recommends his patients replace vitamin A-rich foods and saturated fats, which may also encourage hair loss, with green vegetables, whole grains, essential fatty acids, and other foods rich in hair-healthy vitamins and minerals such as zinc. What you drink may also play a role: According to a 2003 study, alcohol consumption may aggravate hair loss (British Journal of Dermatology, 2003, vol. 149, no. 6). Hair loss is a bad thing. False. Let’s not forget the cheapest, easiest, and safest treatment for male pattern hair loss: doing nothing at all. After all, hair loss is not usually a health concern and, despite what our culture may sometimes suggest, there’s nothing wrong with showing a little skin—on your head, that is. After all, look at Patrick Stewart, Bruce Willis, and Sean Connery. “I certainly wouldn’t recommend that anybody have their male pattern baldness treated who isn’t bothered by it,” says Brodell. “I’m losing my hair, and I’m not using any of these treatments.”

The post Can Hair Loss Be Stopped? appeared first on Super Food Recipes.

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As If By Magic

by Dan H

Tuesday, 15 December 2009Dan actually liked the movie of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince~

Last week, Kyra and I purchased the movie version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

We bought it along with Twilightwith the intent of settling down to an awful movie night. Twilight was indeed rubbish (although I totally heart Robert Pattinson, he's so cute) but my reaction to the Harry Potter movie went something like this:

“This is going to be awful, isn't it. Hey, I'm sure that the book didn't start with Harry sitting in a Muggle cafeteria. Hey, why is Harry chatting up a Muggle waitress, that makes him look ... mature. Oh here's Dumbledore. Hey, this looks weirdly sinister in a non-wanky way. Hey, here's the meeting with Slughorn and hey, he's not horrendously fat, what's going on here? And here's the Hogwarts express and wow, this whole thing is starting to feel like some kind of post-world-war-two spy movie with a genuine air of oppression and danger. And is that Lavender Brown? She seems like a nice girl who's actually good for Ron. And the romance seems to work. And it feels like a school. What the hell?”

So yeah. It worked, it worked surprisingly well.

All Growed Up

I have long felt that one of Rowling's many flaws as a children's writer is that she writes her teenage characters from the viewpoint of an adult. This has, ironically, won her a great deal of praise from her adult readers, who go on about how realistic her portrayals of teenagers are – this is because most adults have no respect for teenagers. Harry spends the vast majority of his time (at least after book five) having adolescent tantrums, obsessing about stupid things and screaming in CAPSLOCK, and grown-up readers look at him and say “wow, that is exactly what teenagers are like”.

Of course back in the dim distant past, the Potter books were designed for children. Children absolutely do not believe themselves to be irrational or immature. They believe themselves to be entirely capable of getting by on their own, thank you very much. Good children's books portray children as they see themselves, while really good children's books walk the narrow path between the two, presenting children in whom children recognise themselves, and in whom adults recognise their children, or themselves as children.

What this means in a roundabout way is that the Potter books feel deeply stupid because you're sitting there going “for fuck's sake, Harry is a kid and you are a grown-up why are you leaving this all up to him you stupid prat?” It doesn't help that CAPSLOCK aside, Harry doesn't change that much between book one and book six. There's always some part of him that feels like a twelve year old, and the Hogwarts students always feel like a “bunch of twelve year olds” to me at least.

Here the film gets a remarkable leg-up from the simple fact that the cast have all - well - grown up, and have often grown up in ways that neither Rowling nor the producers could have ever predicted. The Order of the Phoenix movie, for example, really struggled with the fact that Dursley had gone from a comical fatty to quite a buff young man (they compensated by turning him into a chav, but he still didn't look anything like book-Dursley any more).

Just to give you some examples, here are some photographs of the actors from the movie:

Ladies and gentlemen: Neville Longbottom.

The chubby kid whose pure-blood status was never quite good enough to put him on a par with Harry has grown up into ... well ... that.

And if you think that's scary, try this:

May I please introduce Miss Ginevra Weasley.

And of course, lest we forget:

Famous Harry Potter.

And for what it's worth, that's a shot from Equus, so it's actually quite an old picture.

Anyway, point being, the later Potter books require Harry to do some quite serious, quite grown-up things. In the book this is stupid, because Harry never stops feeling like a twelve-year-old kid. In the movie it works remarkably well, because they suddenly really look like young adults. The fact that the actors are all basically adults now (Radcliffe is twenty at time of writing) combined with a script that removes a lot of the cutsier elements of the text makes the whole thing feel weirdly serious in a way that Rowling never allowed it to be.

The other thing that struck me about the casting is the weird parallel between the cast and the characters. Harry Potter is, after all, a boy who is plucked out of obscurity at the age of eleven, and suddenly finds himself cast into a world in which he is more famous than he can really imagine. This is of course exactly what happened to Daniel Radcliffe when he was cast as Harry Potter some eight years ago, and so there's a sense in which Radcliffe, playing Harry, is really playing himself. Similarly, Bonnie Wright was cast as Ginny at the age of nine – she's been playing the same role for literally half of her life.

Even more interestingly, because the cast – particularly the long-running cast members (you get it far less with the likes of Luna) – were chosen because of the way they looked when they were twelve, they've often developed in unexpected ways which have actually added a peculiar amount of nuance to their characters that Rowling could not have imagined. Of course it's often just visual, but visual isn't the same as superficial – cinema is a visual medium after all.

For example, take this shot of Harry and Ginny in the Room of Requirement:

Now there's several things I'd like to take a look at here. First off, I know it's a small thing, but Ginny is actually taller than Harry. She also doesn't really have red hair any more, it's darkened with age to the point where she's really more of a brunette. I know it sounds finnicky, but these two things actually do more to make me invest in Ginny as a character than pretty much anything else (well, that and the fact that she's suddenly developed this really remarkable, rather sexy, speaking voice).

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (the book) Harry suddenly realises that he fancies Ginny. The problem is that Ginny in the books isn't really a person. Pretty much every trait she possesses defines her purely in relation to somebody else. She's Ron's little sister. She has red hair like Harry's mother (nothing Oedipal about that, oh no). She's brave and good at Quittitch, like Harry (but not quite as good as Harry – that wouldn't be attractive at all).

Movie!Ginny is a very different person. She certainly no longer looks like Lily Evans, and she's lost the characteristic hair colour that marks her out as a Weasley. She's taller than Harry, and in the language of the visual arts, height is frequently a marker for status – hence Voldemort is tall as is Dumbledore, Pettigrew is small (and fat, of course) as is pretty much any secondary character who wasn't cast at the age of twelve.

In the book, Harry's sudden attraction to Ginny was nonsensical, not least because Rowling clearly had no interest in making sense of it. She had obviously always known that they were going to wind up together and it was just a case of getting from point A (“She's Ron's little sister”) to point B (“Marriage”) via the shortest possible straight line which, for some inexplicable reason, involved chest monsters. Rowling transparently couldn't work out why Harry would be interested in Ginny, because she clearly had no idea why any teenager was attracted to any other teenager beyond some vague notions about hormones.

In the movie, however, you can totally see why Harry suddenly notices Ginny, because she's completely changed, and not in an annoying bat-bogey-hex personality transplant way, in a “hey, this is what happens when people grow up” way. Movie!Ginny looks like a person in her own right who Harry might genuinely be interested in (it also helps that movie!Harry has been shown taking a genuine interest in girls, see the Muggle waitress in scene one), book!Ginny is this scary composite of other people designed purely to provide Harry with children to name after his dead relatives.

I'd also point out that if you look closely at the Harry-Ginny picture above, Harry has a distinct five-o-clock shadow.

Canon to the Left of them, Canon to the Right of Them

I freely admit that I only used subheadings in this article because I really wanted to use that line.

The Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince movie has an unusual relationship with canon. Interestingly, it's a relationship that we've talked about before here on Ferretbrain, one that can broadly be summed up by three major points:

The film must contain only events which are part of canon.

If the book doesn't say it didn't happen, it can have happened, and still be canon.

If the book says it did happen, and you don't say it didn't, you can ignore it, and still be canon

Kyra once mocked me for observing, after a particularly peculiar production of Measure for Measure (or possibly Richard the Third) that I'd never quite realised how much flexibility you had within the script of a play to reinterpret the events of said play – often to the point of completely reversing their implications or context (Kyra being an English grad thought that this was so obvious it wasn't worth saying). I pointed out that you could do completely mad things like having a production of Hamlet in which Ophelia didn't die – on the grounds that you never see it happen, and you could perfectly well put her onstage and have her interact with people, as long as you didn't give her any lines. Kyra responded to this with a certain amount of patient condescension. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found that myself watching a film which did almost exactly that.

For example, in the book there is a chapter entitled A Very Frosty Christmas. In this sequence Harry and co go back to the Burrow for Christmas, Ginny is rude about Fleur and – well actually that's sort of it.

In the movie the equivalent sequence involves Harry and co going back to the burrow at some point and the Death Eaters attacking it and burning it down. Because there's nothing in the book to say they don't. And the whole sequence is curiously silent and nobody ever mentions it. They were, it seemed, perfectly happy to have the event take place on screen, but could not bring themselves to change the “script” Rowling laid out before them.

What's amazing is how well this winds up working. The film essentially uses silent images and the judicious omission of (many, many) irrelevant scenes in order to produce a text which, while it may have been inferred from the original, was certainly never implied by it.

On a related note, it's remarkable how much better the story becomes when you take out all of the irrelevant stuff – if you ever needed evidence that less is indeed more, watch the Half Blood Prince movie after reading the book. Suddenly instead of Dumbledore telling Harry that “aah, there is something very important you have to be doing” and then – well – not making any progress in that direction whatsoever, he says “Harry, it is very important that you do this” and then tells him what it is, and then Harry does it, with hundreds of pages of meaningless twaddle excised.

Similarly, the director seems to have abandoned the idea that there should be a “mystery” about what Draco is up to – throughout the film we see him working on the vanishing cabinet, in a series of short flashes which are reminiscent of the Prestige (there's even a sequence with an apple and a caged bird). What we don't get is Harry obsessing about what Draco is up to, despite the fact that he's supposed to have an important job to do. What we don't get is Apparition lessons and – to be honest – that much of the actual Half-Blood Prince plotline.

Fight the Cuteness

Every so often, when watching the film, I'd say to myself “was that in the book? I don't think that was in the book.” Twice I found myself thinking quite clearly “that was in the book, but in the book it sucked.”

These two scenes were as follows:

First is the sequence in which Ron tries out for Quiddich. As you might recall, he starts off doing badly, then Harry gives him Self Confidence (tm) and he does well.

When things are going badly, the Slytherins make up a Mean Song to sing to poor Won-Won. The song goes like this:

Weasley is our king! Weasley is our king! Always lets the quaffle in! Weasley is our king!

Aside from forming a keystone in the “Dumbledore is Ron from the Future” theory, this was lame, cutesy and annoying. When Ron finally gets his shit together, the Gryffindors sing a variant of the song (yes I'm going to type it out again).

Weasley is our king! Weasley is our king! He didn't let the quaffle in! Weasley is our king!

The same sequence appears in the film. However this time the mean song sung by the Slytherins is as follows:

Lo-ser! Lo-ser! Lo-ser!

And the triumphant variant sung by the Gryffindors is:

Weas-ley! Weas-ley! Weas-ley!

Both in a boisterous, locker-room tone.

Can you spot the difference? I'll give you a clue. One of them sounds like something that real people would actually say and one of them doesn't.

I think it was – actually embarrassingly I've forgotten his name, Mike Smith I think, the guy who did the Half-Blood Prince review – who observed that one of his major problems with the Potter series was that it was impossible to take all of the Dark Serious Themes seriously, because they were presented side-by-side with things like Sneakoskopes and Puking Pastilles.

It seems like a churlish complaint but it, well, isn't. Rowling would, I am sure, argue that the cutesy elements are there because it is a children's book. She would argue this because she has no respect for children. Children don't need bright lights and sugar coatings to understand things, they don't need to be spoon-fed watered-down versions of serious issues by patronising grown-ups (is that a mixed metaphor? I suppose you could water something down and then feed it to somebody with a spoon...) they are smart people who actually know quite a lot about the world.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is shot through with annoying cutesy crap that undermines the air of oppression Rowling is trying to create. The movie simply removes it (and again, Ginny is so much easier to like if we aren't being constantly reminded of her proficiency with the bat-bogey hex). Slughorn's gatherings are no longer called the “Slug Club” (well, Ron uses the term, but his tone is pejorative – again taking the same literal text but completely reversing the meaning).

The second clear example of this is in the final confrontation with the Death Eaters. In the book the DEs break in through the vanishing cabinet Snape kills Dumbledore (OMFG SPOILER!!) and then the Death Eaters fight their way out through the Hogwarts student body. In this battle three Death Eaters are killed, no members of the student body (who fight with full force using such devastating spells as the Jellylegs Jinx) are harmed. Yes, I believe the implication is that they used the Felix Felicitas but it still makes the DEs look really really dumb.

Then of course they confront Snape who gets called a coward whilst calmly refraining from killing Harry (and the tragic thing is that JK seems to really mean it). Harry uses Sectumsempra against him, and Snape replies:

You dare turn my own spells against me Potter? It was I who invented them! I, the Half-Blood Prince! And you'd turn your inventions on me like your filthy father would you? I don't think so ... no!

Dude.

In the film it goes like this. Snape Kills Dumbledore (OMFG SPOILER!!). The Death Eaters leave. On the way out Bellatrix walks along one of the tables in

Christchurch

the Great Hall, stamping on all the crockery and putting out the candles. The image of destruction is striking and remarkably affecting. There are no students, but they set fire to Hagrid's hut on the way out. Harry, alone, confronts the Death Eaters, Snape kicks his arse again, and says.

You dare turn my own spells against me Potter? Yes, I was the Half-Blood Prince.

Compare. The first is mad, cackling over-the-top villainy. The second is quiet and understated. The first seems to be there purely to explain where the book got its title, the second seems to be there to highlight how little Harry truly understands about his world.

Slughorn, Dumbledore, Philby

I have, before now, described the Harry Potter series as “the Secret Seven versus Hitler.” A plucky gang of school-age children take on a genocidal maniac with an army backing him up and somehow win.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (Movie Version) takes this pile of stupid and fail, and turns it on its head producing instead something reminiscent of the Cambridge Spies.

I've already mentioned how much the start of the film looks like a nineteen-fifties spy movie, with the Hogwarts express suddenly becoming this tiny, cramped thing straight out of Strangers on a Train. The air of fifties paranoia means that instead of the War in the Wizarding World feeling like a version World War Two fought by twelve-year-olds with stink bombs, it feels like a version of the Cold War being fought by powerful, cynical old men through their young proxies. Dumbledore works through Harry, Voldemort works through Draco, everything is silent and shadowed, and nothing is as it seems.

At the start of the film, Dumbledore makes a speech to the students at Hogwarts. He says two things in this speech which aren't in the book, and which make things very different. The first thing he says is that Voldemort used to be called Tom Riddle. Again this confused me when I heard it because something fandom (or at least the faintly bitter parts of fandom I hang out in) has been up in arms about since the series ended is the fact that Dumbledore (and for that matter Harry right up until the final confrontation) never called Voldemort by his real name. The second thing he says is that “the most powerful weapon in the coming battle is you”. Now if you think about it, that's positively chilling: here's Dumbledore, bastion of goodness, describing his students as weapons to be used in the war with Voldemort. It all conjures this image of a desperate, terrifying shadow-war being fought, where the weapons are knowledge and ideology and manipulation. What a contrast to the actual war, where the weapons are extendable ears, invisibility cloaks, and Expelliarmus.

This idea of a war fought through information and manipulation is reinforced throughout the film, and strangely it is most strongly reinforced through the character of Horace Slughorn. Rowling's Slughorn is in every respect an awful character. A glutton, a braggart and a fool (and worst of all, a fatty – fat equals evil remember) Slughorn is one of Rowling's vast army of despicable strawmen. He is weak, selfish and (horror of horrors) cowardly.

Movie!Slughorn is a much more subtle, much more interesting creature. When he is first introduced, Slughorn shows Harry his wall, showing pictures of his most successful former students. In the book, this makes him sound like a wanker. He brags about what his students have achieved, insists that they wouldn't be anything if not for him, and gloats about all the free stuff he gets. In the film he speaks about his ex students with genuine affection, and a sense of melancholy. You get the sense that he feels privileged to have been part of the lives of these remarkable young witches and wizards.

Throughout the film, Slughorn is played with a lightness of touch, and one is left with the impression that he really did make a difference to the lives of all of his students – at least the ones he singled out. Essentially Movie!Slughorn runs the closest thing that Hogwarts ever gets to a Gifted and Talented Students program – something which any modern institution would consider mandatory. One gets the impression that Rowling who – if I may make an impertinent assumption – does not give the impression of having been an especially bright spark at school feels that recognising the abilities of talented students is nothing more than favouritism. Movie Slughorn is altogether more complex, a difficult amalgam of your favourite teacher and your least favourite teacher, a little manipulative, a little selfish, but genuinely sincere in his desire to bring out the best in his students. It's a quality that's almost unheard of in a Hogwarts teacher.

The key to defeating Voldemort is knowledge and control. Slughorn has knowledge, and Dumbledore needs it. Dumbledore uses Harry to get at Slughorn's memory. Slughorn uses his students to validate himself, but Slughorn's students – both Harry and Voldemort - use him for their own purposes. Voldemort uses Draco to get at Dumbledore, and Dumbledore uses Snape to protect Draco and Harry. It's wheels within wheels on a scale Rowling never allowed us to imagine, because she would never allow us to interpret Dumbledore as being genuinely manipulative.

It is a film of bold and striking images – the repeated motif of Draco pulling the cover from the vanishing cabinet, the recurring shots of a birdcage, empty after Draco uses its occupant as part of his testing. All of the action takes place in long shadows and dark corridors, everything feels secretive and claustrophobic. Every significant interaction between the characters is couched in terms of secrets discovered and betrayed. When Riddle gets Slughorn to tell him how to make a Horcrux, and Slughorn – realising what he might have done – asks Tom to reassure him that “this is all academic, isn't it” (mirroring the excuse he himself gives for stealing valuable magical reagents) Tom replies “oh yes sir, and don't worry, this will be our little secret”. When Snape passes Harry on the way into the lightning-struck tower, he presses his finger to his lips, urging Harry to silence (again this is a change from the book, in which Harry is both invisible and paralysed throughout the whole incident).

The whole thing hangs together into an extremely strong, extremely satisfying film, which is at its weakest when it is forced to stick closely to canon. Ron's relationship with Lavender Brown, for example, is extremely convincing when she's just a pretty girl who happens to fancy him, but the moment they have to let her call him “Won-won” the whole thing just feels stupid. Even when constrained by the original narrative, however, they sometimes manage to salvage the most awful parts of the book. Agragog's funeral, for example, is very well handled, because they neither attempt to get a cheap laugh out of it, nor to make it genuinely moving. It's absurd, but not silly, if that distinction makes any sense.

So, umm, yes. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince well worth seven quid from Sainsburys.Themes:

J.K. Rowling

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TV & Movies

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Sci-fi / Fantasy

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Young Adult / Children

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Sister Magpie

at 21:27 on 2009-12-15Wow, this does make it sound good! I haven't seen it, but it does sound like this was one where they made some good choices. And I especially agree about the actors growing up. I think that's somewhat been true since the beginning. When real people or real kids had to say the lines, they often brought something to it that couldn't help but make it a little different.

One correction--in OotP the book Dudley also becomes a buff young man. You probably just don't remember it because he's essentially the same guy and never changes his personality. But he becomes a boxer, presumably so that he can be a bullying adult.

And also, looking back, perhaps as foreshadowing that Dudley was going to turn out not to be evil, which he proves he isn't by personally validating Harry's worth.

I find it funny to think of Ron's Quidditch story here, because it's actually his Quidditch story in OotP. But it works much better when combined with his story in HBP, because the story in that book was a complete retread with the tiny addition of that Felix Felicitas stuff.

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Melissa G.

at 21:35 on 2009-12-15

(again this is a change from the book, in which Harry is both invisible and paralysed throughout the whole incident).

This was one of my favorite changes! It made Snape's betrayal that much more poignant because there was a moment there when Harry actually decided to trust him. As opposed to having no choice in the matter and being an incapacitated spectator. The fact that the movies can go outside of Harry's POV is a wonderful thing. I actually kind of feel like as the books got worse, the movies are getting better. I'm excited (and dreading) what they'll do with DH.

@Sister Magpie

By the way, I've been reading and LOVING your HP sporks on death to capslock. Just wanted to send love your way for those. ^^

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http://descrime.livejournal.com/

at 21:43 on 2009-12-15Wow, that... actually makes me want to watch the movie. I never really thought about HP from that direction before, but it's true that HP suffers a failure of imagination when it comes to letting the characters grow up. In looks, in personalities, and in interests, all the characters are simply older versions of their child selves with only a few exceptions.

I think Rowling had good stories to tell children, but those stupid Houses kept her from allowing her characters to grow up in an interesting fashion, because it set the character's basic traits in stone at eleven. I could see why she invented them in the first place as an easy way to make the school seem smaller for Harry and the reader. I don't think she had planned on the scope of HP to be as large as it ended up.

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Shim

at 22:17 on 2009-12-15So it looks like I'll have to give in and actually watch it. Should I watch the previous two as well?

There's a vague thought in my mind about the 'childish' elements of the books - Sneakoskopes and the like. That kind of thing, the mixture of fairly stark themes and absurdity, can actually work sometimes if you take a clear angle on it. So I've definitely read childrens' books where the absurdity takes over and people are merrily killed off, tortured (usually in ridiculous-sounding ways) and so on, without attempting to make those bits

ZOMG dark and serious

. At the other end, you can have Mature and Serious books with ridiculous ideas in - bits of Doctor Who (okay, that's rarely completely serious) spring to mind, but... well, Bouncing Bombs? Chasing off hordes of war elephants with music? And military types are prone to inventing irreverent nicknames, so frankly I can see hard-bitten SAS troopers talking about Puking Pastilles and Extendible Ears. The Biggles series, which are serious war stories despite the silly-sounding name, includes a really very sinister book that's mostly about deadly chewing-gum and another with insanity-causing flowers.

Offhand, the Deepwoods/Edge series does a reasonable job of combining silly and serious. For example, they have bizarre creatures and ridiculous outfits, but the people themselves take them perfectly seriously and some of the bizarre creatures are convincingly deadly.

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Sister Magpie

at 01:01 on 2009-12-16

In looks, in personalities, and in interests, all the characters are simply older versions of their child selves with only a few exceptions.

And that's very central to the plot, after all. As Dan said in an article article on Ferretbrain I quite liked:

The problem with Potter is that the "real world" of the Potterverse is so utterly childish. Harry is growing up into a world where everybody is still obsessed with school, where the only person that He Who Must Not Be Named is afraid of is his old teacher, where three fifteen year old kids competing in a school sporting event is international news. So Harry's journey is that of a child growing up and learning about the world, but what he learns is that there is no world outside of Hogwarts.

In GoF we saw hints of what people thought was a complex world, but instead of the world opening out what we really got was real-world things shrunk down to fit neatly inside Hogwarts: international diplomacy was like schools meeting for a tournament, but the principals squabble and we never hear from them again. The government is full of people who bustle around making copies and writing memos but not actually doing anything--except occasionally making rules about things like who gets to play Quidditch at school or whether or not the school groundskeeper can keep his job. Marriage is going to a dance with someone and actually enjoying it. The one guy the evil overlord is afraid of is the teacher none of the kids want to cross. Your job is the job that sounded cool to you at 12.

In this world it's not only believable it's expected that someone you hated at school you'll basically hate as an adult--which is necessary for the entire plot to work. Nobody in the whole series has a single motivation that wasn't created at school.

It actually works really well up until at least PoA, actually. I wonder if one of the reasons that book is so popular is that it's the high point of that kind of world-building when we look at Sirius, Snape and Lupin in the Shrieking Shack and the kids realize they were once just like them, but now they're adults. It's just ruined as they books try to follow the kids as they get older and you realize oh wait, it's not that they were once like kids, they are still kids. That's what changes it from a neat moment of seeing the kid inside the adult he now is to just...the first tip off that these characters are stunted.

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Jamie Johnston

at 01:45 on 2009-12-16

I freely admit that I only used subheadings in this article because I really wanted to use that line.

And rightly so.

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Sister Magpie

at 02:15 on 2009-12-16

@Sister Magpie By the way, I've been reading and LOVING your HP sporks on death to capslock. Just wanted to send love your way for those. ^^

Thanks so much! I keep trying to get myself to do the last two I haven't done, but I don't think I could handle DH again.

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Melissa G.

at 02:20 on 2009-12-16

I don't think I could handle DH again.

Definitely can't blame you for that one!

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Montavilla

at 04:44 on 2009-12-16Thanks for the review. I think the books and the films have a very interesting relationship--partly because of the "faithfulness" shown by both sides. There was, I recall, some speculation that the main actors would be jettisoned mid-series and the parts recast with younger, cuter ones.

But the producers remained faithful to their original leads, and the actors have remained faithful to the series--the only major role that has been recast is Dumbledore and only because Richard Harris died.

I can't imagine that the cast hasn't rubbed off on JKR. I think that Emma Watson (who I felt was miscast as Hermione was written in the earlier books) must have influenced the later Hermione. Late series Hermione is a lot more weepy and emotional than early series Hermione.

I'm glad to hear you defend the burrow scene. This was criticized heavily by fans, since it was NOT in the book. But I thought it made the war--which in the book was conveyed entirely by Ron and Hermione reading bits from the newspaper--something that could affect the audience.

Also, it made the Lupin/Tonks romance more real than the book, using only two lines instead of the countless appearances of Tonks with brown hair. I love the way that films can do this.

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Dan H

at 13:31 on 2009-12-16

I can't imagine that the cast hasn't rubbed off on JKR

Oh absolutely.

An observation I cut from an early draft of the article is that the HBP movie is interesting, because it's the film version of the first book which clearly shows the influence of the films. HBP Snape is *clearly* written with the idea that he would be played by Alan Rickman, so in the movie it comes full circle, and Rickman winds up playing Snape-as-played-by-Alan-Rickman.

Also, it made the Lupin/Tonks romance more real than the book, using only two lines instead of the countless appearances of Tonks with brown hair. I love the way that films can do this.

I found that it made Lupin/Tonks feel really creepy actually. You just look at her and realise that yes, he *really is* old enough to be her father.

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Andy G

at 13:59 on 2009-12-16

Dumbledore uses Harry to get at Slughorn's memory. Slughorn uses his students to validate himself, but Slughorn's students – both Harry and Voldemort - use him for their own purposes.

Was it just me, or were there overtones of seduction in the Slughorn/Voldemort and Slughorn/Harry relationships? By which I don't mean to get all Daily Mail-esque ("Slughorn is a paedo") or anything like that, but it seems there's a subtle suggestion of the possibility of a dynamic of that sort between them which would actually fit well with the analysis you've given. It made Dumbledore's use of Harry to get at Slughorn seem particularly questionable and manipulative.

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Dan H

at 15:15 on 2009-12-16I think there's certainly undertones (again, I think Riddle's use of the phrase "our little secret" was a deliberate choice) and there's certainly an implication that there's something not *entirely* appropriate about Slughorn.

But as you say, the film stays on the right side of OMG PAEDO!!

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Montavilla

at 15:29 on 2009-12-16I got that vibe from the book. I thought it was an interesting change from book to film, that in the book Dumbledore tells Harry about Slughorn "collecting" students in order to warn him. But in the film, it's prelude to Harry asking, "Shall I let him?"

Which was all kinds of creepy.

As for Lupin/Tonks. I can see how that creeped you out, although it didn't for me. (If I can watch Sean Connery and Catherina Zeta-Jones as a couple, then anything's possible.) But regardless of the ickiness of it, they still seemed much more believable than they do in the book.)

:)

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Arthur B

at 15:31 on 2009-12-16Also, I hate to be coarse, but the guy's name

is

Slughorn. That's quite disturbingly Freudian.

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Andy G

at 18:14 on 2009-12-16While we are being coarse ... weren't the broomsticks phallic in this film? I don't think entirely unintentionally - it was all part of the cocky oneupmanship and posturing going on during the quidditch, which felt quite authentically testosterone-driven.

@ Dan: I've never wondered about this before, but looking at our comments, I wonder if there is a difference between undertones and overtones? They seem to mean basically the same thing yet surely semantically they should be opposites ...

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Dan H

at 18:22 on 2009-12-16Hmm ... I think maybe overtones are more overt, undertones more subtle and more likely to be accidental? I'm not sure. Sort of overtones shape and frame something, while undertones underly and support it.

I'm not sure...

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Arthur B

at 18:41 on 2009-12-16Overtones are the ones that hang down from the ceiling of the cave, undertones are the ones that grow up out of the ground.

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Rami

at 19:00 on 2009-12-16According to the intertubes, overtones were originally just the higher pitches you could perceive but not hear in a piece of music; undertones where the analogous lower pitches. I never knew that, but it makes so much sense...

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Andy G

at 19:37 on 2009-12-16I'm in philosophy mode - how can you perceive a sound without hearing it?

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Andy G

at 19:37 on 2009-12-16I would like to apologise for digressing.

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Sister Magpie

at 20:15 on 2009-12-16

I'm in philosophy mode - how can you perceive a sound without hearing it?

Just guessing, but maybe it means that the music would sound different to you without the tones, but you can't hear the tones themselves. So you are perceiving their presence, you just can't hear them.

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Rami

at 20:54 on 2009-12-16

it means that the music would sound different to you without the tones, but you can't hear the tones themselves

There's also been

some research

around the idea that not-consciously-audible sounds can have interesting effects :-)

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Andy G

at 23:47 on 2009-12-16Ahh but is that *perception* I ask with my annoyingly pedantic/facetious philosophy hat on ;)

I considered the possibility of something like a background hum that you don't notice until it's gone. Which would be essentially a reworking of what Sister Magpie said.

Sartre said something similar about self-consciousness - your consciousness can't be directly conscious of itself because of circularity, but it is always aware of itself like a background hum.

Ahem. So, Harry Potter ...

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Guy

at 14:58 on 2009-12-17Wow, Neville is hot stuff!

How to perceive a sound without hearing it? If the soundwaves were inaudible to you (wearing earplugs, say) but caused a visible perturbation in some kind of sensitive material (like a string that had a resonant frequency, say) then you would be perceiving the sound with your eyes, but not hearing it. There's a book by Norman Doidge called "The Brain the Changes Itself" and one of the most fascinating things in it, to me, was about how people can, when equipped with the right... equipment, learn to "see" with their tongue.

I don't know why or if it's the "proper" interpretation, but I tend to think of overtones as being like, subtle allusions or things that remind you of other things (as in, "this film had overtones of Hitchcock") whereas undertones are kind of, I don't know, more abstract somehow, or to do with how something makes you feel (eg, "Peter's apparent munificence carried an unmistakable undertone of menace".) I guess in media outside music, "tone" is always going to be a kind of metaphor that doesn't quite perfectly map to the subject matter, although obviously the term is widely used because it's good at describing *something*...

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http://mary-j-59.livejournal.com/

at 16:18 on 2009-12-17Wow, Dan! I swore that I would not spend another penny on the Harry Potter franchise, but you make me almost want to see this movie. Almost. But (although I think there is some "film corruption" in the later books) I do disagree with you about one thing. I think, if the later films are more watchable than the books are readable, that isn't just because the kids are no longer twelve. It's because the scriptwriters have deliberately *changed their characters* to make them nicer and more mature than they are in the books. Harry's flirting with the waitress would certainly be one example; my livejournal friend, Terri-testing, has an essay in which she details several more. Basically, what it comes down to is that Harry's dark side is expunged, while Snape's is made more prominent. We don't see Harry merrily bullying random strangers, for one thing. This change started already in OOTP (the film), where Harry hands the prophecy bauble to Lucius in order to spare Neville torture. Not in the book! It's interesting (as Terri says) that the screenwriters make these changes in order to make Harry and co. more heroic. Had we seen onscreen what they actually do in the books, I think it would be glaringly obvious that Harry, in particular, is not a very nice kid.

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http://mary-j-59.livejournal.com/

at 16:22 on 2009-12-17Oh - if you're interested, here is the link to Terri's essay:

http://terri-testing.livejournal.com/21351.html

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Sister Magpie

at 17:52 on 2009-12-17

This change started already in OOTP (the film), where Harry hands the prophecy bauble to Lucius in order to spare Neville torture. Not in the book!

Oh, I think it happened before that. As I understand it, PoA "fixed" the scene where Draco gets slashed by Buckbeak in PoA as well. Probably because if you filmed that scene exactly as written it would be harder to take Hagrid and Buckbeak as innocent victim to the Malfoy pet murderers. As I remember hearing it, what Draco actually does in the book is given to Hagrid, while Draco behaves far more aggressively and provokingly.

Sorry, that's just always been something that's bothered me about PoA. That storyline just always seems like a real example of the narrative's stinginess of compassion that we get to laugh when the animal attacks the kid for the same reason Harry wants to attack him (he's annoying) and then play the soft-hearted victim about it. It's like something written by the Prioress in the Canterbury Tales.

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Frank

at 18:14 on 2009-12-17

Had we seen onscreen what they actually do in the books, I think it would be glaringly obvious that Harry, in particular, is not a very nice kid.

Harry has nothing on Hermione. That girl's overtones are disquieting in their dissonance.

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http://mary-j-59.livejournal.com/

at 04:25 on 2009-12-18Oh, yes. There was some debate on deathtocapslock about who would become the next Dark Lord, and many people pointed to Hermione. It's certainly either Hermione or Harry, and I'd agree Hermione is more the type - cleverer and more ambitious, and she really treats Ron quite badly. If he did to her what she does to him, we'd find him abusive. She is definitely disturbing - and she used to be an insecure, aggressive, but basically likable little girl!

But Harry is presented as a CHRIST FIGURE! Harry, the unrepentant torturer. Harry, who never has to change his mind or apologize for anything. That really bugs me, because I take Christ figures seriously. The symbolism means something to me, and to see it so misused was just offensive.

Getting off track, though. The main point is that, by the end of DH, these are not nice kids. Ron is the best of the trio, certainly, but even he has obvious flaws; I find both Harry and Hermione disturbing. In the movies, their actions are sanitized and even twisted to make them conform to standard morality. And that's one reason the movies may work better than the books.

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http://orionsnebula.blogspot.com/

at 22:41 on 2009-12-18Stepping in to crow about having figured out how to use OpenID. My emailed request for a username is now redundant.

I LOVE deathtocapslock, by the way, thank you so much for introducing me to it. That site, and all of the HP discussion on here, will be enormously helpful to my Slytherin!Harry fic.

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Melissa G.

at 22:56 on 2009-12-18Adding to the Ron/Hermione books vs. movies discussion, I was watching OotP movie other day, and I found the bantering between Ron and Hermione quite cute and sweet and definitely not as filled with malice as it appears in the books. In the books, it really seems like they have nothing in common outside Harry to the extent that you wonder what they talk about when he's not around. I remember in the OotP movie a cute little moment when Ron is badgering Hermione to help him with an essay, and she tells him she'll do the intro and that's it while wearing a little smile on her face. It was much more like she knew he could write it but she was willing to give him a little push in the right direction to help him out. Which doesn't seem to the be the way the books portray her doing their homework for them (Harry and Ron) all the time....

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http://musingsandscribblings.blogspot.com/

at 20:58 on 2009-12-20Great review. I haven't watched any of the movies since Goblet of Fire and the latter books made me less inclined. But your review gives me some hope for the movie series over the book series.

I'm glad they didn't tar and feather Slughorn. He was one of my favorite characters.

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http://marionros.livejournal.com/

at 12:55 on 2009-12-22Those bloody movies very subtly whitewash the nastiness that is the books.

http://terri-testing.livejournal.com/21351.html#cutid1

A few examples: during Occlumency lessons, the books show Snape complimenting Harry when he succesfully repels him from his mind and glimpses scenes from Snape's mind about Snape's rotten childhood. Snape has to leave, which gives Harry the opportunity to sneak into his teacher's private Pensieve memories. When Snape discovers this tresspass, he throws the lil' bastid out.

In the movie, Snape throws Harry out when he succesfully repells Snape and sees his childhood memories.

BookHarry uses the Halfblood Prince's spells to bully and hex children he doesn't like and the unpopular Squib caretaker from behind. Not so in the movie.

BookHarry hides the book after slicing Draco into hospital because he wants to keep on using it and its containing hexes. In the movie, he feels anxious about the book and asks Ginny to hide it from him so he wouldn't be tempted by it.

The movie clearly wants to make us believe that it is the book and its author that is evil, and not pure-as-fallen-snow Harry while in the books it is Harry himself who misuses the spells and hints to cheat and bully, and it is made clear by the author (JKR) that Harry is justified to do so!

I know that I should feel relieved that the scriptwriters and producers of the movies at least recognise that the original Harry Potter is an evil little turd and the author of the books quite mad, but at the same time I'm furious that the malignent narcissistic psychobitch gets even richer than she already is by allowing her twaddle to be filmed.

Grrr....

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http://nykinora.livejournal.com/

at 13:54 on 2009-12-22Hmmm. The whole 'who-is-the-worst-of-the-trio' debate. They ALL suck imo. That said, I *never* bought into the argument that Ron being the most 'normal' or (gag) 'relatable' of the three kids (i.e. a so-called 'typical teenage boy etc.) made him a beter, more interesting, sympathetic or compelling character.

Yeah sure, Harry is an utter tool, nasty and a cipher in every respect but Ron, to me, is plain tiresome while his (un)'relationship' with Hermione was manipulative on both ends, boring to read about and stank of mutual abuse and disrespect on both sides.

I took an initial dislike to Ron the instant I encountered the character and there was little that he did throughout the series that dispelled my initial impression that he was greedy, lazy, thoughtless, smug (when he wasn't wildly insecure) and complacent as hell. While Hermione can be annoying and patronising about the Wizarding world, at least she thinks to actually ask some damned questions. Ron, however, swallows everything he's ever been told from birth - and *never* progresses beyond that default position.

I always read the character as a toady. He was an envious, covetous, mean-spirited little jerk who simultaneously worshipped yet resented Harry (as if Harry, of all people, needed a cult) and spent most of his time competing with Hermione for the position of Harry's right-hand man. Not to mention he takes out his mediocrity complex on the 'lesser' Hermione - since he wouldn't dare do it with Harry, save for the brief falling out in Book 4.

He struck me as one of those slimy, dangerous guys who is always looking out for someone who is worse off or lower than him in the social pecking simply to feel better about himself, while resenting anyone who he perceives to be better than him. (Hence his continual disdain for Neville who is more his own person than Ron could ever hope to be. He's every bit as much of a physical buffoon as Neville - minus the sensitivity or the brains - yet somehow he imagines he's superior?)

As for Ron and gender politics? Nothing cute or funny about him in that respect and he's downright creepy at times in the way that he treats Lavender, Ginny and Hermione.

Harry's hollow blandness started to bug by book 3 (he's so redundant, coddled and uninteresting), whereas Hermione's slavish devotion to two guys who routinely use her for homework was always of concern along with the misguided liberalism, prissiness and vengeful streak. (She's pretty much a proxy for JKs own self-hatred anyway.) Still, the plot couldn't function without her whereas Ron was always a needless adjunct.

However, by the time she's crying hysterically, attacking Ron with canaries, being a moral hypocrite oh - and washing Ron's socks, I had ceased to care about the character even if she at one point was the only one with a functioning brain cell and tad of wit. (And the way I see it, nominating Hermione as a candidate for future Dark Lord? Is an unintentional compliment to the character, especially once you see what the 'good' guys are like...)

If the movie tackles what I have seen as one of the central problems of the Potter series then that's good. I am completely with Dan. HP is supposed bildungsroman yet nobody ever grows the hell up - as the god-awful epilogue alone can attest to - and where the characters are superficially put through the motions of adolescence then adulthood minus any of the emotions or even physical sensations that accompany it. JK criticises Blyton, but at least Blyton wasn't stupid enough to mistake lashings of '(faux) dark content' with a mature premise or storyline, or think that it equated to the automatic maturation of her characters.

JK's problem was that she wanted it both ways, as usual. She wanted the sugary, uncomplex school story and all of its attendant values fixed firmly in place yet simultaneously wanted the accolades attached to being A Serious Adult Writer with all of the decorative trappings of 'heavy themes' (Nazis, WWII, class, race, discrimination etc. in an attempt to provide depth and scope) What we got instead, was a nonsensical mess as it failed on both fronts in the end and managed to be neither.

(Even when she tries to move beyond the setting of Hogwarts in the last book and plot structurally collapses, the spirit of Hogwarts still instructs the text and the characters' actions. The books never stop being a moral school story.)

Anyway... *Even* if the film is an improvement on the steaming pile of poo of HBP - it still sounds like a case of someone cleaning JK's crap up and retrospectively providing the much-needed editing that the the books should have had in the first place...

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http://katsullivan.insanejournal.com/

at 15:05 on 2009-12-22

BookHarry hides the book after slicing Draco into hospital because he wants to keep on using it and its containing hexes. In the movie, he feels anxious about the book and asks Ginny to hide it from him so he wouldn't be tempted by it.

Wow! Now that would have been a story worth reading. I think it tells a lot about their opinion of the original source material that the film writers have to change so much about the story for it to work.

JK criticises Blyton, but at least Blyton wasn't stupid enough to mistake lashings of '(faux) dark content' with a mature premise or storyline, or think that it equated to the automatic maturation of her characters.

I'm in the minority in thinking that Blyton's characters actually grow up a tremendous lot for children's book characters. Darrel Rivers gets a grip on a temper that is never depicted as a good thing (unlike say, any one of the seven Weasleys). June, Alicia's bratty sneak of a cousin, becomes somebody admirable when the girl who was mentoring her for a bet breaks her leg in the last book and June, who had quit a few chapters earlier, returns to court for both the broken-leg mentor and her own self-dignity. I don't know of any HP character that you can read up in Book 7 that is in anyway different from the person you met in Book 1. But maybe that is the point Rowling was after with, "your choices show who you are".

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http://quimtessence.livejournal.com/

at 04:34 on 2009-12-25Initially, I had written a rather extensive comment/rant, but I think you've covered pretty well most of the things I was going to say, in one way or another.

Instead, I think my rant could be boiled down to: This movie version of HBP sounds similar to what I expected the book to be like. The real book. The one that millions of people queued up to buy the second it came out and which took her years to put together/write.

That's.. kind of sad. I'm actually siding with a major Hollywood movie that, although it features brilliant actors, I never thought myself siding with.

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Robinson L

at 00:02 on 2010-01-20Interesting analysis, Dan. (You know, I should just devise a program to add that phrase automatically to the beginning of every article of yours I respond to. With a drop down box for the first word with the “great” and “interesting” as options.)

But for me ... no. Not at all. The movie had its good points, I'll grant, and it may have put a better spin on certain aspects of the original, tweaked some details, that sort of thing. But all-in-all, it was just the same idiot plot with the same idiot characters 'far as I could see. Might've been improvements around the edges, but the the story they were working off of sucked to the core, and the movie completely failed to overcome that, in my opinion.

I suppose there was more to the Harry/Ginny romance in this movie than in the books. On the other hand, Ptolemaeus has always been a Harry/Hermione shipper, even now that she hates the series. Consequently, that pairing has always been on my radar, and while watching

Half-Blood Prince

it occurred to me that—in movie canon, anyway—she really does have a point. I'm not a shipper (if anything, I was rooting for Harry to blow off the whole wizarding world and go out with the Muggle waitress) but even I saw that he and Hermione went very well together, in this movie, anyways.

Now as for that Christmas sequence at the Burrow. I had high hopes for that scene when I first saw it, but realistically I expected it to bomb and in that respect, I was not disappointed. Sure, it starts out good, until you discover that instead of coming to the Burrow to do something truly mad like, I don't know, kill, kidnap, or otherwise harm Harry, Ginny, or anyone, really, Bellatrix and Greyback only came to play a bit of hide-and-seek with them and indulge in a spot of arson, which couldn't really have any impact on account of never being mentioned again. I mean, seriously, what were they hoping to accomplish there, scare Harry to death?

I think it was – actually embarrassingly I've forgotten his name, Mike Smith I think, the guy who did the Half-Blood Prince review who observed that one of his major problems with the Potter series was that it was impossible to take all of the Dark Serious Themes seriously, because they were presented side-by-side with things like Sneakoskopes and Puking Pastilles.

That's right, Mike Smith. And I do think he was the one who made that point.

I had a problem with the sequence where the Death Eaters come back from killing Dumbledore, too—similar to my problem with the scene at the Burrow. For me, the image of destruction was

not

remarkably effective because I was sitting there thinking, 'seriously? That's all you're going to do?' Now if they'd been blasting students and teachers left and right, or at least making a concerted effort to do some real

damage

that would've been one thing. As it was, both sequences came off as displays of childish high spirits, which, when it comes to behavior suitable for the top lieutenants of the Dark Lord, is several steps above getting-your-arses-handed-to-you-by-a-bunch-of-teenagers, but is still something which I'd think rather beneath them. I can't see the CIA jumping out of trees at Fidel Castro going “Boo!” or trashing his house in a fit of pique. (Methodically searching his house, maybe, but not trashing it.)

The first seems to be there purely to explain where the book got its title, the second seems to be there to highlight how little Harry truly understands about his world.

Funny, I took it the former way both times, but with it making even less sense in the movie because the whole Half-Blood Prince thing factored in even less.

@ Shimmin: Personally, I wouldn't use Doctor Who as an example, because while it's got childish and silly down pretty well, I generally find its attempts to be Mature and Serious—well, childish and silly. And not in a good way. More in a “I'm J K Rowling and what I'm writing is Big and Meaningful, you got that?” way.

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http://mmmarcusz.livejournal.com/

at 02:32 on 2010-04-28

The key to defeating Voldemort is knowledge and control. Slughorn has knowledge, and Dumbledore needs it. Dumbledore uses Harry to get at Slughorn's memory. Slughorn uses his students to validate himself, but Slughorn's students – both Harry and Voldemort - use him for their own purposes. Voldemort uses Draco to get at Dumbledore, and Dumbledore uses Snape to protect Draco and Harry. It's wheels within wheels on a scale Rowling never allowed us to imagine, because she would never allow us to interpret Dumbledore as being genuinely manipulative.

I'm reminded of one of my favourite posts on the "Deathtocapslock" forum - McLaggen expects Harry to favour him because they're both Slughorn's favourites - Harry tells him to become one of Dumbledore's favourite's, then they'll talk! The morality of Dumbledore's establishing an extra-governmental armed group (with tentacles in all offices of the Ministry of Magic) is never questioned, because he is a Good Guy.

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Arthur B

at 09:00 on 2010-04-28I'm sure I've said this at least three times before, but it still astounds me that Rowling thinks that the Potter series encourages kids to think for themselves and question authority, when over the entire series Harry basically trusts a major authority figure in his life (and this trust turns out to be entirely justified). The real lesson is "question authority, unless it looks kind and gives you sweets and dislikes the same people you dislike - then you should obey."

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Dan H

at 14:59 on 2010-04-29To be fair, this is a relatively common type of lazy thinking. See jokes passim ad nauseam about [SUBCULTURE X] rebelling against conformity in manner which seems uniform to outsiders.

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Sister Magpie

at 17:17 on 2010-04-29

To be fair, this is a relatively common type of lazy thinking. See jokes passim ad nauseam about [SUBCULTURE X] rebelling against conformity in manner which seems uniform to outsiders.

I agree. The idea basically is that Dumbledore doesn't listen to the official authority, so following Dumbledore's authority is thinking for yourself.

I'm more disturbed by the lazy thinking in other places that mirrors that kind of thing. Like how it imo encourages double standards for behavior rather than really thinking about the morality of different situations. Or most of all for me the laziness of the "plea for tolerance" set up that's more like a big pat on the back for anyone who doesn't consider him/herself a racist. (Which is pretty much everyone.)

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Viorica

at 21:22 on 2010-04-29

To be fair, this is a relatively common type of lazy thinking. See jokes passim ad nauseam about [SUBCULTURE X] rebelling against conformity in manner which seems uniform to outsiders.

Most people go through that phase. When I was fourteen, I refused to wear anything resembling fashionable because people who dressed fashionable = people who were nasty to me at school = TEH EVOL. (On the other hand, wearing stuff that was definitely

un

fashionable was the antithesis of that they would do, and was therefore Good.) Of course, most people grow out of that by the time they're sixteen or so.

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Frank

at 04:55 on 2010-04-30

Or most of all for me the laziness of the "plea for tolerance" set up that's more like a big pat on the back for anyone who doesn't consider him/herself a racist.

...even though they are towards Muggles.

Not the lynching, white conservative type of racism, more like the disregarding, white liberal kind. imo

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Sister Magpie

at 16:00 on 2010-04-30

...even though they are towards Muggles. Not the lynching, white conservative type of racism, more like the disregarding, white liberal kind. imo

And pretty much everyone else as well as Muggles. The whole "we're not bigots" mostly rests completely on whether or not you consider Muggleborns just as good as everyone else as wizards. (And also whether you accept as wizards people with embarassing ties to other groups who pass as wizards.)

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Orion

at 02:52 on 2015-07-06Apologies for the extreme necro, but this made me smile: I can't see the CIA jumping out of trees at Fidel Castro going “Boo!” or trashing his house in a fit of pique. Because it sounds like the words of someone who doesn't know the CIA very well. These are the guys behind plans like "drive domestic left-wing activists to madness by letting air out their tires while they sleep." (Unless I misremember and that was the cops) There's really nothing too silly to imagine the CIA doing it.

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Robinson L

at 20:36 on 2015-07-06Ha, good point, Orion; I may have overestimated the CIA's level of professionalism.

On the other hand, I feel like, as evil organizations devoted to imposing their own despotic will upon the world go, the CIA has enough street credit that they can get away with quite a bit of silliness alongside it. The Death Eaters, not so much.

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http://kitsune9tailed.livejournal.com/

at 06:56 on 2015-07-28I was with you up until here:

"One gets the impression that Rowling who – if I may make an impertinent assumption – does not give the impression of having been an especially bright spark at school"

This was just a petty jab at someone and crossed the line from criticizing someone's work to a direct personal, and shameful insult. I am sorry that you felt your criticism of the series (which, although I disagree with it, I was fascinated to read and try to understand the points) was so weak that it had to have an extra little punch by calling someone stupid or uneducated simply because you disagree with their body of work.

So, shame on you and I sincerely hope you grow to be a better person than this.

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Show / Hide Comments -- More in December 2009

[akingslayerx-blog]

V E R S E S   part 2

MODERN AU  ; FEAR CUTS DEEPER THAN SWORDS

WESTEROS; A world power divided into SEVEN kingdoms, divided in turmoil.

( The North , The Riverlands, The Westerlands, The Erie, The Reach, The Stormlands,&& Dorne, )

The Monarchy is dying, the King little more than a figure head. A KING would sit on the throne (no longer IRON), a seat once held by a Tyrannical Targaryen. EVEN with a king, never again would the people allow ALL of the power to rest with one individual. AND SO, a COUNCIL of SEVEN was formed. A seat for every ‘KINGDOM’. Along with the council, there would be an official ELECTED by the people of Westeros, the Hand. The title taken from a time now over, the HAND would no longer serve the KING but THE PEOPLE INSTEAD.

PRESENT DAY

Westeros is a striving country with all of the modern conveniences. The people no longer fear the wars of kings and liege lords. Robert Baratheon rules as the current King, Cersei Lannister as his Queen, both figure heads more or less. In the position of Hand, the people have elected Jamie Lannister, twin brother of the Queen and the eldest son of one of the most prominent families in Westeros. A representative from every ‘KINGDOM’ sits one the council. In the coming months, the SEVEN ‘Kingdoms’ may soon become eight when the people of WESTEROS vote to either elect THE IRON ISLANDS as a kingdom of it’s own or to leave the island as a part of the NORTH.

On the surface, Westeros is a forward moving country. Technology is advancing everyday, health care and the happiness are the government’s biggest CONCERN. Overall, it is more than a pleasant place to live.

But there are whispers to the North, of a nameless fear, of the dark night, of the dead rising beyond the Wall. But the Northerners are superstitious bunch, && the south only see these whispers as SUPERSTITION. AND to the East another threat grows, an ancient MAGIC, a girl with Targaryen white hair and DRAGON FIRE.

Jaime is in his SECOND year as the Hand, with his father guiding him, he will continue to lead WESTEROS into a bright future. BUT a rebellion threatens the peace Jaime has fought so hard to maintain. Rebels in HIS borders concerned with that nameless evil have begun to cause panic in the streets of WINTERFELL, and have plans to move SOUTH. .

MODERN ; GENERAL

Tywin Lannister is a well like member of parliment and owner of Lannister Communication Systems. The entire Lannister family are in the publice eye, not only because of Tywin's noterity and wealth but because of Cersei's marriage to the reknown Robert Baretheon, Britan's Hero. Jaime was groomed to take his father's place, maybe not politically but definetly in the role of CEO. Jaime on the other hand had other plans. After college, and a promising career as an Equestrian, Jaime joined the military. (to be developed) .

AU  ; HARRY POTTER ; A WAND INSTEAD OF A SWORD

The Lannister family prided themselves on their pureblood. When a man appeared that called himself Voldemort appeared, Tywin Lannister was intelligent enough to keep his distance. Even as other pureblood families joined what they called the 'cause', the Lannister family remained neutral. From an early age it was clear how easily magic would come to Jaime. When he was eleven years old Jaime began his first year at Hogwarts, where he was sorted into house Gryffindor. Sorting did not go as the boy planned, only because his sister had been sorted into Slytherin house. His years at Hogwarts were spent fighting rumors about is family and hiding his relationship with his sister. Despite it all Jaime made it through Hogwarts with the highest marks. He played on the Gryffindor Quidditch team and even lead the school's Dueling Club. Jaime made it through his OWLs easily, a career as an Auror waited for him. (To Be Continued)

AU  ; RIVERDALE

Jaime Lannister is a R E C E N T transplant to the sleepy town of Riverdale from London. Why exactly the Lannister family is moving the United States, to Riverdale, of all places isn’t exactly known, except for the occasional ‘ FOR A FRESH START ’ line from Tywin Lannister and every servant the family brought with them. Suspiciously enough, Jaime’s twin sister was shipped of to the best ALL GIRL’S school in New York.

But rumors follow the Lannisters like a bad smell. Rumors of inappropriate relations, murder, and of course scheming.

How will this lacrosse playing Brit take to sleepy Riverdale? Wait && See.

FC Taron Egerton.

AU  ; LORD OF THE RINGS / THE HOBBIT

After Winter came and the dead followed, Westeros was lost. Soon after Westeros, the dead continued to move south, and the east, consuming the known world. Jaime and a small group of survivors made it past the known world, to a place call Middle Earth. ( To be developed more)

AU  ;    M A R V E L

Jaime Lannister was born into a wealthy family in Great Britain, his father a member of Parliament and the CEO of the Lannister Corporation. He attended the best schools, the best university. But the life of a CEO, of a politician did not seem the least bit fulfilling for Jaime. During his second year at University, Jaime joined the Royal Marines without the blessing of his father. It was there that he found his true talent. It was clear from the very beginning that he was born to hold a gun, his marksmanship being astoundingly excellent. Jaime spent his twenties making his way through the ranks of the Royal Marines, until he was recruited into the SBS. (Special Forces of the Royal Marines.) In the SBS, Jaime did many morally questionable things. Some of those things haunted him.

Jaime’s squadron, squadron X, found it’s self in Nigeria, providing back up to local forces in hopes to stop the illegal transpiration of Ivory and Vibranium. While the confiscation of the black market items went on without a hitch, transporting the Ivory and Vibranium turned to be more problematic.The convoy was hit with a series of bombs, leaving the majority of Squadron X dead, and Ulysses Klaue now with the Vibranium and Ivory in hand. Klaue knew who Jaime Lannister was, he knew the price Tywin Lannister would pay to have his son returned to him, even if his son were maimed.

To no surprise Tywin did pay the ransom, but the man who returned home was not the man had left for the jungle. Thirty percent of Jaime’s body was burned, his right hand, his trigger hand was completely gone and due to a head injury Jaime was left in a coma and unresponsive.

Fast forward three years : Tywin has spent a fortune in healing his son’s brain injury, to no avail. Until he stumbles upon an abandoned American military project called Weapon X. Jaime was injected with a serum meant to bring out any latent mutant abilities. The process was insanely painful, but it did bring Jaime from his coma. The process made Jaime more than a little unstable, his memories more or less gone. The mutation that manifested included heightened senses, agility, strength. His ability to heal is quicker than an average human but no where near that of Wolverine or Sabertooth. It also includes a more than perfect aim, Jaime never misses his mark even with a bionic hand.

Jaime would end up leaving his family and making himself a name as a mercenary known as the Kingslayer. .

(CAN BE EDITED FOR DC)

[comeondowntosouthparkrpg-blog]

billy “carlos” harris

This isn’t the make-a-wish foundation, fuck off.

Carlos has been accepted! Please send us your blog and a faceclaim to be featured on the main blog!

out of character info

Name/Alias: fuckin me again Pronouns: fuck/fucker/fuckself Age: 19 Join Our Discord: ye Timezone:  est Activity: u know me Triggers: none fuckers Password: jimmy can fast pass my ass Character that you’re applying for: Billy/Carlos Favourite ships for your character: nothing and/or chemistry

in character info

Full name: William Carlos Harris / “Carlos” Birthday: July 3 Sexuality, gender, pronouns: Straight, cis male, he/him Age and grade: 15 sophomore

Appearance:

Carlos is about 5’9, making him one of the tallest out of his classmates, at least, for now. Though he isn’t very tall, he was usually rather lean throughout his life, until he started to get sick and lose some weight. He isn’t necessarily boney, but he’s rather thin, since he tends not to gain much weight no matter what he does. He’s pretty much as white as the next guy during the winter, but he tans very easily. However, more recently he takes some pretty hardcore precautions to avoid skin cancer by wearing loads of sunscreen –– by his mother’s demands –– so throughout high school his skin has stayed rather pale. He prefers to be pale anyways, so it doesn’t matter much to him; he doesn’t want his skin to become dark and wash out his light brown hair which he sometimes plays with by lightening it, either at the barber/salon or by putting something in his hair to make it lighten by itself in the sun, letting it pop up from under the visor that he has to wear to protect his face in the summer. When growing it out it’s wavy, and though it’s all cut short every few months, Carlos has his hair longer on the top for most of the year.

Despite a diverse wardrobe filled with many different stylish pieces, when you break down his outfit combinations they tend to be pretty similar, at least in shape. He’ll wear a baggy shirt or sweater and/or jacket or hoodie, with much less baggy pants, and even skinny jeans or chinos. On special occasions he can be seen in nice button ups and pants, or even a suit. Carlos does like hats, particularly beanies or backwards baseball caps, however he doesn’t go for the hat if he doesn’t feel like it ‘vibes’ with his outfits. He has to have at least one accessory, however, and if it’s not a hat it’ll be sunglasses, a watch, or a necklace. What he lacks in his body type he makes up for in stylishness, as he’s not afraid to take risks and to bring bold styles he sees on tv or magazines into his world to act like he’s not just a cool guy, but he’s a cool guy who dresses better than you AND your girlfriend.

Personality: 

Unaffected by most of the worries that catch his peers, Carlos is used to the unfair, painful aspects of life that others aren’t used to experiencing regularly. Carlos a little punk. He’s used to dropping everything to do something new, whether it’s what he wants to do, or if it’s just being forced on him –– of course, the former is his preference. He loves to live wild and free, sneaking into parties when he can, longboarding around the town with his friends, doing graffiti and other petty crimes. Like most people who share his struggle with illnesses he doesn’t feel bitter about his lot in life. However, that isn’t to say he isn’t a sweet little angel whose kind and suffers quietly. He doesn’t really care what people say; he’s never one to take things to heart, though, living life day by day with hardly a care in the world. Or, rather, with as little care as he can survive with.

Some thing most people don’t see besides his classmates is that, while most people see a sad, suffering little boy, his peers know to be something of a fuckboy. He only talks to girls on Snapchat, and acts like iMessage doesn’t exist. He wears soccer socks with adidas slides way beyond the soccer season. He has the classic fuckboy haircut. Okay, so he kinda respects women as much as any fifteen year old boy can, and he’s not seriously asking girls to bang, but he does talk shit about his mother, and he will like a girl’s instagram but won’t text her back, so he can’t help but give off the fuckboy vibes. In reality, he’s just trying hard to be a normal kid and live a normal live, since he doesn’t know how long he’s really got, and doesn’t want to spend his time isolated because of it.

History:

William Harris was born to Sloane Harris and a Mexican immigrant named Javier Silva on July 3rd. All was well in his life, playing around with the other kids at preschool, loving sports like soccer and lacrosse, until he started feeling sick around five years old he was diagnosed with lung cancer. The arguments between his parents that the diagnosis resulted in caused a rift between Sloane and Javier, as Sloane believed that, despite her family history of the disease, her son’s lung cancer was caused by Javier’s chain-smoking. As the fighting got worse and worse between his two parents, little Billy, as his mother called him, kept getting sicker and sicker. As he was getting sick, his father was kicked out of the home, and went to work on a ranch in New Mexico. William was upset by this, after all the years he has spent with his dad sitting on his lap watching movies and sports, and started to go by the name his father wanted for him, his grandfather’s name — Carlos. 

He was treated with chemotherapy when he was five, spending most of his kindergarten year in the hospital. Luckily for him, he was able to keep up with the learning by having his mother speak closely with the school and ensure his education while he was being treated for his lung cancer. He learned his shapes, colors, letters and numbers, and was able to remotely pass kindergarten and spend the summer recovering. He returned to the second grade a new kid, asserting himself as an important part of the classroom and getting closer with the kids in his year. This wasn’t all without complications, however –– he still went in for a lung transplant at some point in the fifth grade, something the doctors suggested if he was ever planning to play sports. It was back to the hospital for a bit, when they found more cancer cells growing in his body. They caught it early, though, and treated it quickly, so he was back to school in no time. 

In middle school, his resentment towards his mother for forcing his father out returned onto the board again in a greater magnitude than before, fueled by those new teenage emotions, prompting him to write to Javier to try to build a relationship with him. Soon enough he was being driven two hours south to see his father on long weekends, vacations, and other parts of the year, which his mother, who wanted to make him happy, wasn’t particularly happy about –– even if research showed that his father’s second hand smoke didn’t led to his childhood cancer, but instead it was a prominent family history of cancer on her side of the family, (which Carlos pointed out must’ve been the case after shoving all that secondhand smoke research into her face.) He was back with his parents again, and despite the tension that persisted from the awkward arrangements and meetings, he was going into high school ready for anything. 

Carlos was even prepared when he was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia at the end of his freshman year. After knowing his family history, as well as receiving chemo as much as he had, he wasn’t surprised. His doctors and family knew that this was bound to happen, and they were happy to have found it in it’s early-stage, meaning he wouldn’t have to worry about treatment nor the risks of it until it got to the point where treatment became necessary and helpful. He was thankful that this time he didn’t have to be the sick kid who was always out of school, who was always leaving class to throw up, who couldn’t play sports or climb the rope at gym class. The only complication he had to really worry about for now was a lowered immune system, but that wouldn’t stand in his way –– he didn’t care what he shouldn’t have been doing. He’d still eat gross things for dares, kiss strangers (if they’d let him,) and was obsessed with doing whatever the other boys his age did, and even taking it above and beyond. Even with his illness, he was able to focus on being himself and being a kid, and he wasn’t worried about how long he had left until his illness got more aggressive –– he learned to live in the now. So he did.

Sample paragraph: 

Soccer practices were always a little much for the tired boy, but none other had compared to this one. He knew it was the first practice of the year and he wanted to make an impression on the coach, saying that he was capable of playing hard. Unfortunately, he was harboring a massive headache and it only got worsened by the noises that surrounded the teen on the field. The sharp sounds of whistles being blown and the shouts of the cheerleading team practicing hurt like hell. The cheerleaders weren’t even supposed to be on the field this afternoon, but due to some poor scheduling, the soccer team had to split half the field with them –– because god forbid the football team have to split their field instead. That, of course, was a ton of distraction for the boys on the football team, and it only made the practice seem longer and earned the team some running laps. 

“Alright team, ten minutes of running around the field! And I don’t want to see any wimpy running, I wanna see Forrest Gump, not Tommy Boy!” The team groaned, and Carlos went to his bag, removing his socks, shinguards, and shirt. Though he didn’t really have anything to show off there like the rest of the boys did, he wanted to beat the heat, and didn’t care if he made people look at his thin, pale arms because of it. Popping a few Tylenols for his headache, among other aches and pains, Carlos threw his bag back to the bench and started running to catch up with his team. Ten minutes of running with complaining teammates, some guys faking tying their shoes so they didn’t have to run, and a lot of sweat was probably the worst part of that practice, but soon after they were able to leave for the locker rooms. The surrounding sweaty and stinky boys became invisible to him once he stepped into the shower, turning it on and letting the icy cold water pour over him. That certainly eased him.

Headcanons: 

rly likes post malone

hates the whole “wow, he’s a miracle”, “he’s so brave”, or any other well-intentioned bullshit comments regarding his ‘ongoing battle’, or whatever. he isn’t here for some pity party where people make themselves feel good for cherishing the sick kid.

got one ear pierced because he thought it was cool. two days later he thought it looked stupid and now he doesn’t wear an earring at all.

brings his longboard to school and tries to ride it in the halls sometimes. also wears a thrasher hoodie. (yes, the two are connected.)

highkey thinks neymar jr is jesus. is rly into soccer.

once tried to go cow tipping but then he sneezed too loud and the cow  woke up and walked away

still dabs in 2018. like the dance move, not drugs

but he also smokes weed

Anything else: fc is ricky garcia

sry my writing is bad and also kill me

[shanekelly1]

Why is Hair Important to Men?

The matter of hair grooming is not entirely all about the women. Keeping a well-groomed head of hair for men is as important as it is for women. As the cliché goes, “Your hair is your crown and glory” no matter the gender. The hair, after all, is your best accessory. And for men, a well-kept, thick head of hair brings added good looks to an already good face. To a certain extent, it adds character to your personality and even embodies your identity.

Hair Grooming Trend in Men

The obsession over keeping a great looking head of hair is apparent. Just take a look at your local supermarket, you will find shelves of personal hair care and grooming products especially formulated and intended for men’s hair to keep it healthy and well-maintained. In an article for Hairdressers Journal Interactive, a poll conducted by money-saving site Net Voucher Codes UK revealed that 57% of men use between six to ten grooming products per day, which include hair shampoo, conditioner and hair styling products, among many others. And it added that hair shampoo and styling products, came out as the top products men cannot live without.

One of the respondents said that, “I sometimes surprise myself by how many grooming products I have but I do use them all. The ones for my hair are essential otherwise it would look a complete mess.” In addition, Sheriff Mehmet, men’s grooming director of the British Barbers Association even commented that the male grooming industry has certainly boomed and went on to say that, “For many men this is a daily ritual. The male grooming market is booming with new products hitting the shelves every week. In my Envy Barbers shops there is a growing clientele who will specifically buy the latest products for their hair as well as skin.”

The poll also revealed that, while a third of the respondents were encouraged by their partners, 44% shared that they simply wanted to look their best and 13% were inspired by celebrities like David Beckham and David Gandy.

Biological Significance

Apart from the aesthetic value of hair, it has biological importance that most people may not be familiar with. Interestingly, the defining characteristic on top of your head is nothing more than a composition of a tough protein called keratin and dead skin cells. Also, our bodies are almost literally covered with hair. The hair on your head is the first line of defence against the sun’s UV rays. The same goes with the hair on the body; eyebrows and eyelashes also help protect the eyes from UV rays as well as debris.

Apart from keeping the head protected from harmful rays, it protects your head against excessive heat by helping to circulate the air around the scalp and shutting out ambient heat. It also acts as your body’s natural insulator by trapping body heat and keeping it close to the skin, which helps to prevent a drop-in body temperature.

A fun fact about the hair is that it has the ability to retain concentrations of heavy chemicals of ten times more than in blood and urine, like lead, mercury and arsenic. And because of this, hair can be used to detect these harmful substances in the body during testing. And did you know that hair cells stimulate neurons, which give us the sense of orientation and helps maintain equilibrium in our body?

Hair as a Sign of Virility in Men

Aside from muscles and brawn, hair is the embodiment of masculinity and virility in men. A thick head of hair, coupled with a well-toned body, signifies a perceived image of a testosterone-filled man. The bigger the muscles and the thicker the hair means that a man is super charged with the male hormone, which symbolizes the penultimate machismo. After all, testosterone is often associated and synonymous to sexual drive and stamina.

So when a man is showing signs of hair loss, it creates a perception that a man is also losing a part of his maleness. This creates a dent in the self-esteem and self-confidence of a man, with the perceived idea that he has lost a chunk of his manliness when he starts to lose his hair. That is why more men, who are showing signs of male pattern baldness, make a lot of effort in either concealing or treating their thinning hair as soon as imminent signs are showing.

Ironically, according to a compiled statistical data on hair loss, 30% of hair loss sufferers would gladly give up sex just to get their hair back.

Looming Sign of Aging

The likelihood of losing hair increases as men age. According to statistics, 70% of men will show noticeable hair loss by the time they reach the age of 60. However, the same statistics show that 40% of men will begin to show noticeable signs of hair loss by age 35. This significant number of young men losing their hair could be due to genetics, stress and unhealthy lifestyle choices. And if you think you are the only ones suffering from hair loss, young celebrities like British actor of the Harry Potter movies fame Tom Felton, soccer player Wayne Rooney, Backstreet Boy AJ McLean and N’Sync member Joey Fatone are just some of the famous celebrities who have succumbed to hair loss at a very young age.

As posted on the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery website, 62% of balding men experienced a loss of self-esteem according to a Spanish study as reported in Men’s Health. Albert Mannes, PhD, University of Pennsylvania researcher, said that, “Hair loss is associated with aging and thick hair has always been associated with youth and masculinity.”

Keeping the Important Hair Thick

Out of these young celebrities, three have made the gallant choice of finding a surgical solution to keep their head of hair. These celebrities have admitted to have undergone hair transplant to combat their hair loss situation. McLean, specifically, even proudly displayed his all-important new hair through his Instagram account saying that he could be happier with the results. He went on to say that, “Some girls get their boobs done some guys get ab implants all to make them happy! This was the one thing I did and I couldn’t be happier thank u dr G!!!!”

In fact, based on 2013 statistical report from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), hair transplant is listed as the 6th most performed surgical cosmetic surgery among men trailing closely behind with facelift. About 71% of hair transplant patients are performed for men, showing that the issue of keeping hair thick and growing is very important. And the older the demographic gets, the percentage of men getting the procedure is also increasing.

Hair is certainly very important for men. From the biological importance that hair holds, looking aesthetically pleasing to maintaining their youthfulness and perceived virility, hair plays a significant part of any man’s life.

If you are one of the unlucky ones suffering from hair loss, there is no need to fret. Medihair Transplant Clinics in Melbourne is here to help you with your hair loss situation. Our hair restoration specialist will thoroughly assess your condition and provide you with an in-depth solution that will address your personal needs.

Ask for a free private confidential consultation with Medihair Transplant Clinics today. Call 1300 355 325 or email info@medihairtransplant.com.au