#retweet is Reborn | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

who-is-page · 2 years

Text

Looking into Burn Out

Author: Page, Dash Type: Essay Words: 2,453 Summary: A short look at burn out in older alterhumans, especially those in therian/otherkin/fictionkin communities.

[Part of the Sol System's Alterhuman Writing Project for NaNoWriMo 2021. If you don't want to see these posts, block the tag #inkedpaws]

Burn out within the therian, otherkin, and fictionkin communities is a pretty well-known phenomena. Younger members barrel into the community, excited and terrified at the prospect of having finally met people who understand, relate, and even potentially share some of the experiences and thoughts they thought were unique to them alone, but become gradually more and more horrified and jaded as the years go by. As the community moves on away from the terminology and ideas they were originally introduced to and evolves in new and unexpected directions, it causes friction between the now-aging nonhuman and the community they call home. It only gets worse when you rip away the curtain from behind uglier parts of the community: missing stairs that are defended by previously well-loved or well-respected older members, groups that defend transphobic and homophobic or otherwise bigoted rhetoric and use their nonhumanity to deflect criticisms, the infamous overtly religious physical shifters and the bestialists that lurk at the edges and exhaust everyone by constantly trying to assert their Legitimacy and Validity and how you can’t be a Tr00 Were unless you’re one of them. Really, when you put things into that perspective, some may think it’s a frank wonder we have any older members at all.

The communities as a whole sometimes appear as cycles of rot and wank that seem to never end and that may well poison you if you don’t limit your exposure. We’re not bound together by codes or morals or anything truly mutually shared beyond the words we share about our alterhumanity, and that can often make it difficult not to feel both alienated and disappointed: alienated in the fact that even among so many others similar to you, there’s still no one who precisely understands your experience—and when you’ve been around for ten or so years, this gradually shifts worse and worse as people talk about their identities in functionally different ways as time goes on. Disappointed in the fact that so many people, so many times, will let you down in the ways you least expect. The saying “never meet your heroes” is just as alive and well within otherkin, therian, and fictionkin spaces as it is anywhere else, and for good reason. We’re all flawed beings, but sometimes our shared sense of experience and nonhuman identity can stretch into a convincing visage of alikeness that doesn’t exist and hurts to have ripped away. Racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic alterhumans all exist. Alterhumans who will devalue you and criticize your usage of certain labels—therian, otherkin, fictionkin—based purely on entirely superficial things or their own inflated sense of superiority in their personal belief system, all exist. Alterhumans who encourage others to act inappropriately towards minors and animals (often sexually, though not always), and those who defend such, exist. These are all the minority of the communities, but it can’t be denied or ignored: they exist alive and well all the same.

It can be suffocating staying in spaces in these communities for too long. We’re small enough that after a certain period within these spaces, maybe six or seven years at most, you realize that everyone knows everyone else: anywhere you go, you’ll likely be met with familiar faces, both the good and bad variety. There’s the guy who told you your kintype was impossible because “no one can be reborn as that,” there’s the girl who accused you of being a zoophile that one time you retweeted a leather wolf mask you thought was cool, there’s the singlet of indeterminate gender who you saw publicly disavow nonhuman systemmates as all being fake. The list goes on and on.

At a certain point, it’s hard not to leave. You usually end up carving out your hole in the wall with a set group of friends over the course of time spent in the communities, and some people find it so much less annoying or hostile overall that they just straight-up abandon larger community spaces in favor of them and are never heard from again. Other times, some people feel like they’ve shared all they’re willing to share and peace out there. Still others look around the glorified user-hostile pit trap the Internet has become in the last decade and just limit their time in community spaces until they vanish forever, keeping their nonhumanity to purely physical spaces. There’s a million and one reasons to get gone, and we’ve seen it happen time and time again. Even the people some would say have had the most influential effects on the nonhuman communities have vanished this way—Orion Scribner vanished so thoroughly from the communities ten years ago that “pulling a Scribner” is an actual phrase I’ve heard used to reference when a well-respected greymuzzle finally reaches their tipping point and just vanishes into the metaphorical woods one day out of nowhere, and they’re never heard from again. (Has anyone informed the illustrious, recently returned Scribner that their name is part of a phrase, and if not, please dear gods don’t let them find out through this essay of all things.)

You might ask, with so many reasons to leave, why stay? What’s the point? Out of habit, out of concern, out of responsibility? But that’s not a question I can answer for you—and honestly, it’s the wrong question to be asking at all. Nothing here that I’ve described is wholly unique to the otherkin, therian, or fictionkin communities, nor any other alterhuman spaces: in fact, you could arguably say it’s just the price we pay for relying almost wholly on digital spaces to host our communities and a majority of their both separate and shared history. There are bad people in every community, every small community suffers the fate of everyone knowing everyone else, and discourse is just going to be found everywhere you go. These things seem overwhelmingly hopeless at first when they stand alone, with nothing else in comparison to themselves—like they stood at the beginning of this essay—but put into perspective, it’s easy to understand as just another eternal fault of being a part of almost any group.

The real question we should be asking is, how do we fight against the burn out that’s common to the alterhuman communities and ends up driving so many away? Especially for those of us who have been here long enough to see the same kinds of discourse be recycled for the twentieth time over, or who have had to distance ourselves from previously-loved portions of the community, digital places and real people that we once considered akin to home?

The most obvious thing to do, first and foremost, is to remember that it’s okay to take breaks, and even to start encouraging breaks community-wide. This is something that I saw more present in the mid-2010’s when I first arrived, though it was at the tail-end of its popularity even then: now, instead, there’s the perspective that people always have to have their paws shoved into every possible thing possible and relevant to them within the communities, that they always have to be up-to-date on the latest drama, that they need to be aware and understanding and active in everything at all times. We’ve seen the consequences of this at play in the last few years alone, when “zoophile” drama popped up Twitter last year and into this year—when people, who had no idea that Therian Guide forum owner Lycantheory was a bestialist and bestiality advocate, were targeted as “zoophiles” because they hadn’t made public statements regarding the tornado of discourse that was going on. While it’s one thing to inform your community about a missing stair and advocate that something be done about it, what we saw happening was an entirely separate beast that was spawned from the unwritten rule and expectation that Thou Must Always Know What Is Going On And Must Be A Part Of It In Some Way.

And breaks are also healthy for understanding yourself and your own experiences, too. Sometimes everyone else’s opinions and snide side comments can get in the way: breaks work to remind us that it’s not what other people think about our identity or experiences that are important, it’s what we think about them that are. That’s just an all-around benefit, given that we never really stop learning about ourselves, and is something that could probably benefit both older and newer otherkin, therians, and fictionkin, I feel like. At the end of the day, it’s perfectly acceptable to step away from the community or parts of the community as you need and come back when you’re ready—it’s just that sometimes the attitudes abound don’t make that readily apparent.

In connection to that idea is the recognition that just because life outside the nebulous, digital realms of the community is important doesn’t mean that it supersedes existing within community spaces. I see this in farewell letters often and I know for a fact I’m not the only one who notices it—there seems to sometimes be an over-prioritization or under-prioritization of actually, physically going out and experiencing the parts of your identity in connection to the other complex parts of your life. With under-prioritization you see people who have opinions that are clearly based on zero real life experience, but which they try to force on everyone else as factual, and with over-prioritization you see people whose heads are stuck so far up their own asses it’s amazing they can appreciate offline life at all. It’s a battle of the “if you wear a collar you’re into real animal abuse, and too many people do that here that I can’t stand it so now that I’m leaving, you’re all #zoos” versus the “if you’re on the internet you’re a CHILD who needs to grow up and appreciate the REAL WORLD and stop CHASING CLOUT AND MEMES, one day you’ll grow up and realize that I, Mother Wolfqueen1984, was right in saying this. Goodbye forever youngin youngster children kid babies” types, and it’s just not productive at all. Either extreme is draining and it’s not healthy to be so stubborn as to lose balance entirely: maybe a more online or offline lifestyle works for one person, but that isn’t a basis for everyone and shouldn’t be treated as such. Both offline personal and online collective experiences are valuable, and both are functionally healthy to participate in on some level, to some extent.

I’m also going to put a perspective out there on the importance of curating your spaces and how you interact with the larger alterhuman community or the overarching otherkin, therian, and fictionkin communities at large. It can be exhausting to force yourself into forums, groups, and communities that feel wholly hostile or at odds with you, and I mean that in application to wider networks too, like entire swathes of social media websites and tags. Pushing yourself to be a part of a space just because you know a significant amount of people who identify similarly to you, or who use the same labels as you, are on there is something I see happen frequently within nonhuman communities, especially in regards to fictionkin, with canonmates and sourcemates, and therians, with packs and the dwindling amount of therian-specific communities out there.

But if someplace sucks and is draining to be a part of: if you’re always butting heads, if things the other people say upset you, if you feel like you can’t relax and be wholly open on there without getting potentially attacked…leave! Walk away! You don’t have to be there. Have you ever heard the phrase “no D&D is better than bad D&D”? It’s the same rule here: no community is better than bad community. Bad community drives people away, embitters them, and even in worst-case scenarios outright traumatizes them. No community just means that you keep an eye out and maybe float from space to space for a while, which is entirely preferable.

Finding spaces filled with people you enjoy and conversation or discussion that engages and interests you is a major step to avoiding burnout from happening, and it shouldn’t be overlooked or dismissed as underwhelming. Community is what someone makes of it: the otherkin, therian, and fictionkin communities at large don’t exist without the people in them, and while a singular person doesn’t have the power to change large segments of the community in massive, mind-boggling ways, a single person can change how they participate in the community in ways that positively effect themself and the people around them. No one is required to be around people or in places that make them miserable, uncomfortable, tired—no one is owed anyone else’s presence. People are always allowed to step away or avoid such when they need to, in whatever capacity that means for them personally.

And in the same vein, do things that you love and enjoy in these community spaces. Don’t want to write essays? Then don’t write them! A way to avoid mental exhaustion is to refuse to drive yourself to do things that you dislike or find unrewarding, whether that’s new projects or old continuations. It sounds simple, but I see people frequently stress that they won’t be able to contribute to larger community spaces if they don’t do it the ‘right way,’ because they don’t enjoy writing, or don’t have fun drawing, or any number of factors. Prioritize yourself over what you “owe” the community, because at the end of the day, no one owes any section of the therian, otherkin, or fictionkin communities anything by just inherently being a part of them.

Burn out isn’t an inevitable part of these communities, and it should never be treated like it is. While the otherkin, therian, and fictionkin communities have their flaws and problems, these aren’t wholly unique to them: they’re problems we can see net-wide. Getting burnt out, frustrated, and disappearing without a word to anyone (or with a bitter goodbye letter) shouldn’t be considered the natural end to the cycle of being a part of these groups. Mental exhaustion and frustration to the point of leaving and never returning shouldn’t be the normal or standard for long time community members. What I’ve suggested here is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of things to keep in mind to avoid burn out or reverse it when it’s already in action: this isn’t the end-all be-all to things people can do. But if people feel like the suggestions I’ve made here are useful, I implore them to take it before they commit to just leaving the therian, otherkin, and fictionkin communities entirely and never looking back.

#inkedpaws #alterhuman #otherkin #therian #fictionkin

39 notes · View notes

fleeting-whimsies · 2 years

Text

I saw someone ask another creator which characters block immediately and who gets into online beef and that got me thinking... 🤔

Sofia: blocks immediately and then retweets/reblogs a bunch of "protect your mental health 💗💗💗💗" shit.

Eula: gets into Twitter beef, is genuinely upset, her whole day is ruined. She also reblogs/retweets a bunch of affirmations and posts about protecting your mental space.

Reborn: blocks them on his main, finds their ip address and starts sending harassment their way. Threatening their life.

Byakuran: does the same thing as Reborn but he doesn't immediately block them, he starts concern trolling the person while simultaneously finding their ip and sending death threats.

Kaeya: ignores because he's busy looking through their account to find something to cancel them with 🥰 he is unbothered, does this while sipping tea.

Mona: shaking and crying she is still fighting this fight against this heinous individual. Mona understands theyre trolling at this point but also can not allow this disrespect to continue. Uses her abilities to find their address and beat their ass.

#musings #headcanons

2 notes · View notes

kendallstewy · 3 years

Text

A bit late on posting this, sorry my dear, but I was tagged by @woozapooza to list nine comfort films! Only the first two are in order 😊

1. Maurice (1987) - as a tiny queer 14 year old who had no friends - and I mean that quite literally, NONE - this movie was my best friend. I watched it every Sunday to help give me courage for a new week of loneliness. It’s my favorite gay film of all time. I’ve had the god tier pleasure of interacting with Rupert Graves a few times and I have part of a tweet he sent me (“have faith in yourself Xx”) tattooed on my wrist. Sixteen years later, watching this movie still feels like coming home. Literally my warm blanket movie. My heart bursts and I feel reborn. Is there a love that is literally all-consuming? Yeah, I have it for this film.

2. Velvet Goldmine (1998) - here’s another film that feels like coming home when I watch it. I first saw it when I was 17 and it helped me come out as bi to my mom. It got me into glam rock, which was another formative queer thing that helped keep me sane in my loneliness. Watching it obsessively and listening to the soundtrack on repeat were lifesavers. I felt so free. I can’t overstate the impact it had on me. I wore glitter nail polish just to remind myself of it. I was able to interact with the producer once and she kindly retweeted my thanks to her for helping make the film.

3. Les Amants (The Lovers) (1958) - this is my favorite French film, bar none. There is a very slow burn up to a part that is one of the most romantic bits of any film I have EVER seen. Seriously it is drenched in romance and I just bask in it. It feels like it was tailor made for me to feel like I’ve ascended to a higher plane where true love exists. I love watching it alone in the dark, the atmosphere it creates is magical. So soothing, just heavenly.

4. Whisper of the Heart (1995) - this is my favorite non-Miyazaki-directed Studio Ghibli film and definitely in my top 3 Ghibli films. I watched it again this week and it was so calming. It’s one of the best slice-of-life films ever and I adore the characters, especially the heroine. She is very much like me as a young teen and actually still really relatable to me at (almost) 30. It is so uplifting and I feel so at peace living in her world for two hours. The ending is pure joy.

5. God’s Own Country (2017) - another top notch gay film that is really spiritually nourishing. There’s a scene that’s not even a sex scene, it’s just kissing while shirtless, and it’s breathtaking, I think about it at random moments during the day. It’s one of the most tender things ever. In general I adore the two men and the journey Josh O’Connor’s character goes on in his self-growth, it’s really moving. I did love him in The Crown but to me he’ll always be Johnny. I could legit watch this every day.

6. The Lure (2015) - I went through a long period of watching this at one AM every night for weeks. Despite the tragic elements, I feel so happy when I watch the mermaid night club singers perform and then eat men’s hearts. The whole movie is like a patchwork quilt of styles and emotions but it never feels uneven and I love slipping into that crazy world and going along for the ride. It feels so natural to settle into the nuttiness. Also I have a mega crush on one of the lead actresses, so there’s that.

7. The Happy Prince (2018) - again despite the tragic elements, this is another one that I watched every one AM for weeks in order to fight loneliness and find solace in the presence of Oscar Wilde. I saw this in the theater and it was a transcendent experience. It’s visually gorgeous and written in a way that’s so stimulating to my mind without taxing me. I have loved Rupert Everett since I saw Another Country (1984) when I was about 15 and so seeing him give this most magisterial of performances is thrilling. It’s like swimming in beauty.

8. Rocketman (2019) - I saw this five times in the theater. Literally. Five. And I cried. I’m not even a particular Elton John fan although I do love all the songs they used, but the narrative of trying to find self-love without consistently sabotaging yourself is so relatable to me that I feel so connected to it. And of course the acting and music and dancing and costumes are so much fun. I always watch it in front of our biggish screen tv with the volume turned up high so I can pretend I’m in the theater. It’s both exciting and healing which is a potent combo.

9. My Own Private Idaho (1991) - god this is such a sad movie tbh but I feel like River Phoenix’s character is my best friend and I love spending time with him. He’s my favorite actor of all time and he is god tier levels of majestic pathos and gravitas in this. One of the best performances I have ever seen. Ever. I feel so close to his character who wants something so badly and is willing to literally take to the road to find it. It paradoxically shatters and heals me at the same time. Keanu Reeves is fun in it too and he and River are one of my favorite screen duos ever. I watch this every Halloween in memoriam of River.

Thanks Wooza ❤️ I tag literally all my followers. ☺️

#tag games #films #comfort films

7 notes · View notes

blackfireswallow · 3 years

Photo

Mario updated his Twitter ^^ He retweeted the announcement of his 2nd collaboration with Yamamoto Yohji according to the 4th anniversary of the brand and wrote:

"Congratulations on the 4th anniversary!!"

Mario also left a message on the official site. The name of his collection is "Reborn" and he said the following about it:

"The first message what came to my mind is the word of rebirth. Since last year the world has fallen into a difficult situation, and even for myself, the things which were natural to do have been lost. [Therefore] I expressed the wish for being able to "rebirth" the everyday life and get it back. I'm grateful I can convey this message through the world view of 'Ground Y'."

According to this collaboration, new items were created to commemorate the anniversary and Mario promotes them as a model. The items are going to be available in the online shop here from April 21: theshopyohjiyamamoto.jp/shop/t/t1317/

Sources: https://twitter.com/m_kuroba/status/1382534114750844930

https://twitter.com/Ground_Y/status/1382530057034297345

https://theshopyohjiyamamoto.com/shop/t/t1320/

https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000129.000034350.html

#kuroba mario #mario kuroba #Yohji Yamamoto 4th Anniversary

5 notes · View notes

andyoumattertome · 7 years

Video

youtube

noora & william | can't live without your love

#new video about my babes #im so happy that william is back #and if u follow me on twitter you know thats all i retweet and talk about it #he is just amazing #and my skam love reborned bc of this #also this was one of the first couples i was completly in love with (even before robron)#so im damn happy they are back #and that now i can focus on them and not on robron #so yeah #noorhelm #noora x william #skam #seasong 4 #myedits #<3

17 notes · View notes

hexusproductions · 4 years

Note

I have no idea what No Straight Roads is but I want to know //everything// about it and your oc!! (Only if you want tho, obviously)

I very much want to!! Thank you for giving me an opportunity to gush about my most recent obsession

You can find my basic rundown on No Straight Roads here as well as one on my OC here, along with this post about his relationship with some of the canon characters.

As a refresher, my No Straight Roads OC is named Q-pid, the bread-and-butter for Prometheus Records. Q-pid is actually a lovecore-themed fictional persona, his real name is Pitt. Even though he loves being the character and being a musician, his ideas are usually struck down by his superiors, and he’s limited in what he’s allowed to do and write.

The in-universe ‘lore’ behind Q-pid is that he is a living embodiment of love sent to spread his message world-wide, essentially Cupid reborn. As such, the brand the record label sticks to is that of pure, family-friendly (but also commercialised) love in all of its possible forms. Q-pid has remained popular since his debut and has sparked a large fanbase. Similar to certain real-life persona bands, a variety of usual fandom creativity has popped up, including fanart and headcanons about the fictional character.

The essence of Q-pid’s personality is ‘Sweet as sugar, heart on the sleeve’, which has in fact become the mantra of those playing the character. Pitt, however, has an ego and pride in his musical abilities and appearance (he flaunts the fact that he spends hundreds of dollars into a single outfit alone). These two personalities don’t clash, however that ego occasionally shows in Q-pid.

Here’s some more information that isn’t included in his OG posts that I want to share (since you said everything about the character):

I do think of Q-pid as an optional boss in the game, who you’ll most likely find inside of the main building of Prometheus Records (the label is technically owned by NSR). You won’t get a district from defeating him, but you’ll still get all of the other boss rewards (special abilities, collectibles, etc.).

Pitt is bound by his contract to not let anyone know who he is, so he takes a lot of measures to make sure he’s not seen when out in public as himself. There’s a lot of layers involved clothing-wise, which can be a pain in the summer.

Q-pid has his own official social media account, while Pitt has his own personal one. Q-pid’s account is roughly 50/50 posts made by Pitt (in-character) and promotional posts made by his producers. Pitt’s account is full of things that he likes, but nothing personal.

Some common things you’ll find on Pitt’s personal account include; Numerous phone-recorded videos from the crowds of concerts by musical artists DJ Subatomic Supernova, Rott, and Bunk Bed Junction. Aesthetic photography of clouds, hearts, and fighter jets. Numerous retweets of cat pictures and videos.

Pitt does love the lovecore aesthetic, but he also enjoys the pilot aesthetic (this is most obvious in his go-to clothing item out of character being a bomber jacket). His back-up plan if he fails in the music business is to finally get his pilot’s license.

His favourite colours are mint green and pink

Pitt really wants at least one song where the themes/lyrics take Q-pid in a slightly darker direction. A lot of fanart commonly explores that idea, which both pleases and infuriates Pitt, because clearly it’s something at least some fans want. He even brought up the idea of a ‘bad boy’ costume for just one video, but that was also struck down.

He loves candy hearts and will pick through them for just the right message when giving them to someone, for no reason other than he feels joy from doing it. -- His costume designer implements a bracelet made out of candy hearts (painted wooden beads), which is where the ‘heart on the sleeve’ part of the Q-pid mantra originates, and it’s one of Pitt’s favourite parts of the costume.

I’m really tempted to drop all of Q-pid’s visual references here (the ones that I haven’t shown yet), but I might put all of those into a seperate post.

There are certain things I’m thinking about eventually implementing into Q-pid’s story, but at this point I’m unsure whether I should, since they impact the core element of him being controlled by his managers. Chronologically these events won’t happen for a while.

I really love this character and fully encourage any more questions about him, I plan on making more content in the future.

#NSR OC #NSR #No Straight Roads #Q-pid #thank you for asking!#I'm sorry for not seeing this before #this is very long but I'm grateful for the opportunity to share info #that I didn't have a way to before #Anonymous

16 notes · View notes

dreamings-free · 4 years

Photo

How Harry Styles Became A Modern Style Icon

by Phoebe Luckhurst - Evening Standard 15/11/19

A man wrought in the fires of teenage boyband hyper-stardom is not afraid of a little commotion. Still when Harry Styles — the One Direction matinée idol turned languid Gen Z icon — tweeted, at 1.01 pm GMT on Wednesday afternoon, that he would be taking his upcoming album Fine Line on tour, you could, if attuned to the correct demographic frequency, hear the howl echo around the internet: guttural, hungry, ululating. This was a pseudo-religious experience: one viral meme depicted the Pope holding a copy of his album aloft. The announcement has been retweeted almost 70,000 times.

The 25-year old is a tour veteran — he spent five years and five albums strapped to the thundering 1D juggernaut — but this new tour is his first as a bona fide solo brand. The album, his first in two years, is synth-soaked and soulful, the album’s aesthetic fever-dreamy. Granted, he’s not the first person to go to SoCal, try a few magic mushrooms and declare himself radically transformed, but the results are beguiling — and certainly a world away from his years as a Simon Cowell Ken doll. Since his last record, he has co- hosted t he Met Gala and been reborn as an Alessandro Michele muse. This is your Styles crib sheet.

Melody maker

Styles’s new album — written under a tie-dye mist after taking the aforementioned psychedelics, which also resulted in a mishap in which he bit off the tip of his tongue — is “all about having sex and feeling sad”, which, granted, as a topline, does not wildly differentiate the record from the genre of “al l other music ever”. Still, the early signs for Fine Line are encouraging. Its first single, Lights Up—which has been streamed almost 100 million times on Spotify —is synth-y, soulful, understatedly anthemic, very different to, and better than, the lead single on his last solo record, the Seventies, soft-rock Sign of the Times( it still, of course, hit No 1), and very, very different from anything he did with 1D. Many thousands of words have been written about whether there is a bisexual subtext to Lights Up. It has been noted that the song was released on National Coming Out Day, that Styles’s sexuality has been subject to frenzied speculation before, the video features an oiled-up, topless Styles gyrating around men and women, and that the lyrics (“Shine, I’m not ever going back/ Shine, step into the light”) could be interpreted as a meaningful revelation of sorts. Certainly, he has become a queer icon — especially with Gen Z — who are thrilled by his selection of genderqueer singer-songwriter King Princess as his support act for the European part of his tour. Speaking of collaborators, Styles worked on the album with producers Tyler Johnson, who has worked with Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus and Ed Sheeran, and Jeff Bhasker, who has collaborated wit h Mark Ronson and Kanye West, and his friend, Tom Hull, aka Kid Harpoon, who co-wrote Shake It Out for Florence + The Machine. He has also been granted a fairy godmother: Stevie Nicks, who called him her “little muse” at Fleetwood Mac’s hyped Wembley headline gig i n J une. “S he’s a l ways there for you,” Styles has said in the past. “She knows what you need: advice, a little wisdom, a blouse, a shawl.” Sure.

Got Styles

Any young man raised in the white heat of a boyband spotlight must be granted the space to find his fashion path; Styles has done so with no missteps and exuberant pleasure. Once upon a time, he would semaphore his individuality with a bandana; now, he turns up to a cover interview with Rolling Stone in a white floppy hat, blue denim bell-bottoms and Gucci shades, his nails coloured pink and green. His favourite trousers, until he lost them on the beach, were a pair of mustard corduroy flares; this week, he wore a Lanvin sweater vest with a sheep design that sent a coterie of London menswear stylists into throes of ecstasy. He wears floral suits and Cuban heels, ruffled, New Romantic shirts, Charles Jeffrey jumpsuits and pussy- bow blouses. It is flamboyant, self-consciously Bowie/Jagger, and in Gen Z parlance, “very extra”. His stylist Harry Lambert is partial to an extravagant collar, dramatic neckline and a voluminous trouser.

Besides Lambert, another part of this evolution has been his relationship with Gucci’s creative director Michele, who has turned the Italian heritage brand into the ultimate post-gender luxury fashion label, the first to merge their menswear and womenswear, and dispatch male models down the catwalk in dresses and women in suits. A good look for a Gen Z idol.

With the brand

Notably, the branding on this album and its tour artwork is consistent with this new look Styles. The album cover features Styles i n white custom- made Gucci bell bottoms and a Pepto Bismol-pink shirt, open almost to the waist, shot by mod-goth Tim Walker with a fisheye lens (it is Walker’s hand in that S&M glove you can see in the left-hand corner). In the dreamy video for Lights Up he wears a glittery suit and suspenders, in a sort of hallucinatory version of Saturday Night Fever. Into it.

Stand up

Then there’s his voice — not the music, but the activism. Even as one-fifth of a boyband manufactured by Cowell’s algorithm, he was quick, quippy and itching to go off-message; but now that he controls his own, he is amplifying causes such as Black Lives Matter and End Gun Violence. He wore stickers for both on his guitar on his last tour, which might sound small, except that photographs of Styles gallop around the digital world at hyperspeed. At concerts, he has waved pride, bi and trans flags, and a Black Lives Matter flag. He once borrowed a flag from an audience member at a show in Philadelphia that read, “Make America Gay Again”. At a show on his last tour, he declared: “If you are black, if you are white, if you are gay, if you are straight, if you are transgender — whoever you are, whoever you want to be, I support you.”

A vocal, engaged fandom of teenage girls minted his multimillion-pound fortune; he is loyal and admiring of their zeal. “They’re the most honest — especially if you’re talking about teenage girls, but older as well,” he told Rolling Stone this summer. “They have that bullshit detector. We’re so past that dumb outdated narrative of ‘Oh, these people are girls, so they don’t know what they’re talking about.’ They’re the ones who know what they’re talking about. They’re the people who listen obsessively. They f***ing own this shit. They’re running it.” Obviously, he’s a feminist. “Of course men and women should be equal. I don’t want credit for being a feminist. I think the ideals of feminism are pretty straightforward.” An icon is born.

#harry styles #evening standard #15.11.19 #article #stylesupdated #hlsource #hs2 promo #harry #mine

172 notes · View notes