#**harsty

[aimmyarrowshigh]

*figures out how to ship harry styles with Everyone again like it's 2012*

[aimmyarrowshigh]

real people don't queerbait

False. Lol

"Queerbaiting is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation."

Queerbaiting is literally a term that applies to fiction. Harry has never pretended to be in a queer ship -- unless you count 2010-2012 Larry fanservice...

Real people can market themselves as queer -- which Harry doesn't, considering all of his publicly known partners have been women and he's never claimed to be queer -- but that isn't queerbaiting.

Words have meanings and your argument will be better if you use the right words.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

Thank you for the thoughtful answer about your larry fics and I'm sorry you felt anxiety writing it! I appreciate your answer so much, it gave me a new perspective on creating content for problematic ships (which larry is now unfortunately) I think people erase parts of their fandom past to protect their hearts, similar to the way you break up with someone. This person/fandom meant so much to you and you loved it but now it hurts to think about. Thanks for standing up against cts from the start

I can definitely understand that, and I’ve wrestled with it wrt Harry/Louis, too -- and with Harry Potter, because that was such an enormous, formative part of my life, and JKR has turned out to be such a vile piece of shit that it’s impossible to go back to the source material without feeling slimy.

But I think in both cases, I agree with what Heidi said in her episode of IMYOLJ about trying to reconcile loving Harry Potter fandom with hating JK Rowling and what she imbued canon with in terms of like, overt-veiled bigotry... what I loved, and love, most about Harry/Louis was never really Harry and Louis and One Direction, it was the fandom around them and the friends that I made and the creativity they inspired and the joy that kind of fannish excitement gave me. And I don’t feel gross about that, and I don’t regret that.

Same with Harry Potter; what I love, really, is how much my young self loved and learned and was inspired by Harry Potter, not the actual text of the books themselves. What’s mattered is the way that Harry Potter changed the MG/YA world and the world of fandom, and those have nothing to do, really, with JKR or her actual works. They’re about other people, whom I don’t feel gross about.

Harry/Louis was so much fun for me not because of anything that Harry or Louis or 1D did, but because of the days that @witchietozier and I stayed up all night writing fake versions of them, or the explosion of excited, joyful posts on my dash the morning that LWWY leaked early, or how igrab flew halfway across the country to spend the night at my apartment so we could see 1D’s first-ever US tour and then dipped out to get burgers before the actual headline act hit the stage because 1D were just the opener (lol), or @kingsoftheimpossible‘s Weird Cat Louis, or getting to meet Catie and Emma and @nichestars and so many other people in person and have coffee or whatever and talk about fanfiction in real life for once.

I loved Harry/Louis so much because sure, those pictures of them meeting Baby Lux for the first time may have been what inspired MYEYNL, but Millie was an OC that I spent a year writing and creating and actually finished a massive-length fic about, and I am always going to be proud of the massive-length stuff that I actually finish instead of getting in my head too much and forcing myself to just abandon. I love Millie. I love the fake versions of Harry and Louis that I created in MYEYNL, and I love the fake Harry and Louis that Lucy and I created in Sheylinson, and I love the fake versions of Harry and Louis that Lucy and I created in Landslide, and I love the fake versions of Harry and Louis that Hannah and I (but mostly Hannah) created in Anyplace Anyhow Anytime. I have always loved the fake versions of them that I was creating, by myself or with friends, infinitely more than the real versions.

That’s what fandom IS, to me. You see a thing and you love it, sure, but you love your own version of it infinitely more. And that’s worth trying to keep in a fond place in your heart, for me. And it’s something that I feel like, for me, is worth fighting against shitty people so that they can still exist, and hold back the tide against what the shitty people have created taking over entirely.

Harry Potter Fandom is the breakwall that stops JKR in her tracks because the versions of Harry and Ginny and Hermione and Ron and the Marauders, all of whom would fucking embrace trans people and mostly fucking ARE people of color, have a bigger and stronger and more meaningful place in the world to more people, at this point, than JKR’s dinky versions.

The Harry and Louis that starred in the fics that I loved -- and there was SO MUCH GOOD H/L FIC back in the day, holy shit -- are NOT the Harry and Louis that Larries believe in, and they’re also not the real Harry and Louis, who are just, like, dudes in their twenties who are whatever. And the more versions of Harry and Louis there are in this world that AREN’T the Larries’ version, the less ground the Larries’ versions can claim for their own.

But I totally understand looking at the carnage of the ideological battlefield and just being like, “My heart is too broken for this.” I get that, 100%.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

harry styles wanders out of a different decade every day and i’m not saying it’s usually sometime in the ‘70s but i just feel like he could give the 1920s a chance maybe. put on some spats. wear some candy colored silk shirts and make daisy buchanan cry. maybe that’s the problem; harry would never intentionally make anyone cry.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

I don’t understand how Harry dressed less campy to the Met Gala themed “Camp” than he does like, on an average Tuesday, end post.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

how did we fall into the harry styles trap again

It's the Big Himbo Energy, and also he has kind eyes.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

v... can you believe we're lucky enough to have harry styles... he's such a Good Boy.

All of the credit to Anne and Gemma, honestly!

[aimmyarrowshigh]

v… have you seen the pictures/videos from harry’s gucci shoot? is this not peak landslide!harry? i’m dying

I have! I actually died at the last ones he did, too, with holding the baby lambs and goats and stuff, because that was also Very Landslide!Harry. And don’t even TALK to me about him LITERALLY SINGING “LANDSLIDE” WITH STEVIE NICKS, because I had sworn I was Off One Direction, but