#also incidentally

[skulkingwriter]

Joel Bille - The Midnight Walk (Original Game Soundtrack)

Listen to The Midnight Walk (Original Game Soundtrack) on TIDAL

I can more or less guarantee that this will be my most listened-to album of the whole year.

It is melancholy and strange and beautiful (much like the game, which I have not played but have watched, shoutout to Scary Game Squad). Probably 80% of the words I have successfully written this year will have been written to this album (or the Warriors playlist which this album forms the backbone of).

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

And considering that Harry has a more privileged background

Does he? They both went to very similar state secondary schools that were considered 'good' by Ofsted at the time with near identical A*-C grade achievement at GCSE.

Both sets of parents were employed and earning. Louis' mother had a degree and worked in the NHS as a midwife, a more middle class job than Anne, who was the landlady of a pub. Louis owned a car aged 18 and could ski. Jay said that the family went to the south of France every summer. Harry had never ski-ed but had been on vacation to Cyprus and other Mediterranean destinations.

If this anon had said Harry had a more privileged upbringing than Zayn, I'd agree. But Louis? No. The same, plus Jay knew showbiz people like James Corden and Louis was signed to a theatrical agency and had been for years.

I said in the tags that I think that I think using the terms privilege muddles thinking and I think in some way this anon proves my point.

I've never seen any evidence that Louis was signed to a theatrical agent for years, but even if it was true - then that's really not evidence of 'privilege'. A theatrical agent is a sign that someone is working as a child - and that's not a sign of class power (no matter how much the Jenner's has screwed people's perception). Likewise caring for children on set in regional TV production may put you in contact with people who go on to be stars, but it is a job a woman does because she needs money, not because she has it.

I'll get into the absurdities of the discussion of holidays later on. But calling this rather random set of facts 'privilege' ignores the structure of society - and the way that influences, although does not determine people's lives

********

If they had not gotten through on the X-factor, there would have been a meaningful difference between what was most likely to happen in Harry and Louis' lives - not based on anything about them personally, but about their families' class position.

Like a lot of women, the men Anne Twist was in a relationship with was more important than her own job in determining her opportunities and the opportunities of her children. When she was in a relationship with someone who ran a pub, she worked in the pub. From memory, for the rest of her working life she did the sort of undervalued admin work women often do (I think I've seen her linked in -but it's no longer available).

Harry's Dad worked in banking operations (he's now a consultant). He had reasonably senior positions with titles like 'head' and 'director' and he was regularly travelling to Europe for work (this is all very clear from his linked in). Living in Holmes Chapel was possible because of his Dad's job. In 2011, Holmes Chapel was the 98.77% least deprived part of the UK. That matters - that makes a difference to the opportunities you have and your life expectations.

As often happens, the divorce had an impact on Anne's life. She had to move out of Holmes Chapel for a while because she couldn't afford it (I'm not sure if that was after her first divorce or her second, but I know that someone has talked about it). They lived above a pub. Then she got together with Robin, who owned a business that seems to have been prosperous. That seems to have put her family on a similar financial and class footing as it had been during her first marriage.

For most of his life before X-factor (about 7 years before his parents split and for at least 2 or 3 years after Anne and Robin got together), Harry lived in a very specific sort of middle-class family - regional money people. They definitely weren't well connected - he'd never been to London, but the money meant that they were able to live somewhere where they were much less exposed to the societal costs of neoliberalism. If Harry had been interested in banking and business in Manchester, then Robin or Des would have been able to help. Although they had very little connections with the arts.

I'm sure Harry's experiences between Anne's divorce from Des and moving in with Robin effected him. They may be part of the 'somoene like me that this represents. But I think it's missing a lot to ignore either the longer periods of his life where he was living in a solidly middle class family - or that the whole point of living somewhere that is one of the 99% least deprived places in the country - is because it's protective against certain kinds of outcomes for your kids. (A very different thing from providing the most opportunities)

*******

Jay's trajectory, and therefore Louis' was very different. Rather than a dip between two relatively economically secure positions, her economic position was one of extreme vulnerability after childbirth, alongside a general improvement (the exterme vulnerability after childbirth is another common aspect of women's economic trajectories).

Being a young single mother in Doncaster in the 1990s was awful. The Tory government of the time actively attacked single mothers and accused them of having benefits for babies. Doncaster was in a dire economic state, because of mine closures and that sort of substantial change effects opportunities in all industries (this is why you should never believe that government cuts might make life better for people who don't work in government).

Her economic situation would have improved substantially when she got married to Mark. I don't know much about Mark's work history, but but his instagram showed that he was working in work vehicle sales in the late 2010s. That might have been the area he worked in for a long time, but it might not have - we don't really know. But it gives a sense of the sort of work he did. It has certain perks (there are presumably bonuses), but there's no power within the organisation

The other big step forward was Jay getting her degree in 2002, after that worked at the NHS as a midwife. It really increased her ability to get better pay where she lived, but it's important not to overstate the economic position. There's a huge difference between a good wage in female dominated work and a good wage in male dominated work. Jay's starting rate in 2002 would have been about £17,000 - that's £31,000 now or US$41,000. Her wages went up as she got more responsibility (and there were probably penal rates), but it's important not to overstate the economic security of health professionals.

I think the family faced economic difficulties when the twins were born (this bit is conjecture - but it's pretty informed conjecture). They moved back from Plymouth around the time that twins were born - they'd probably moved to Plymouth for Mark's job (after all midwives can work anywhere) and they probably moved back for support with the kids. Jay was working supervising children on set. What's stood out for me about that work, and the time which she did it, was that it was a job you could take two babies to. It's always really frustrated me when people have suggested when this was some kind of special or privileged job - whereas taking opportunities that are possible.

By the time the twins were in school the family would have been the best off economically that they'd ever been. Jay was back working as a midwife (and I think had some lead responsibilities from memory) and we've no reason to think that Mark wasn't working. But that was from a relatively low base. It allowed them to move to the posh part of Doncaster (something only ever said with a bit of irony).

Jay obviously had ambitions for her kids, and her money could provide some things. But there were lots of things that it didn't allow her to do - and one of them was protect herchildren from the shocks of neoliberalism. Doncaster was hit hard by the Global Financial Crisis. The South Yorkshire economy contracted more than Greece's. It was a really precarious time for kids.

And what you say about schools is really wrong - there's some factual inaccuracies about Ofsted ratings - but there's also a problem in treating Ofsted as a substitute for quality. Because the point of Ofsted is to reproduce class systems (no matter how much they tell you differently) and therefore it's not a good measure of how class is reproduced at school. Jay couldn't prevent her eldest child going to a school where he was told that he would only be able to work at McDonald's and live a sad lonely life. I've always thought that story, and the paths that both Louis and David Allen took, was an important piece of information about Louis and class.

********

Class is not about holidays or cars or other forms of consumption (at some times consumption can inform you about class - but except at the extremes the location of holidays in the UK in the 2010s is not one of them). We actually have a really good example of this within 1D. Liam's family went on holiday to Disneyland in Florida reasonably regularly. He's said that they couldn't afford it - that his Dad put it on the credit cards. I think you can see the impact that the credit card debt had on Liam's worldview and approach to life - and it didn't do him any good. Rather than seeing those holidays as 'privileges' - it's much more telling to look at how his family's financial stress affected Liam.

Class is about access to power and resources - and the ways in which groups of people with power and resources ensure that that's passed on to their children.

Now most people do not have that much access to power and resources - so they're scrambling to try and increase the chances that their children have chances at stability and choices, and don't face the worst sorts of deprivation and insecurity that happens.

If you're talking about class difference between people who are still at school - the question isn't about where they holiday - it's about what are their chances. All this became moot for 1D - because chances are not destiny and they all ended up doing something very unlikely. But their chances in life were different at the beginning of 2010. It's important not to overstate this - after all they all went on x-factor before they did their a-levels. But the differences would have mattered.

I have gone to all this length - and it is a lot of length. Not because the details of Harry and Louis matter that much. It is silly for people to pretend that Harry didn't come from a middle-class background with more protection than other 1D members. But people think lots of silly things in fandom and I don't write quite this much about it. I've gone into this much detail, because I think understanding how class and power is reproduced matters.

[catilinas]

trick! 🎃 or! 🕳️ treat!! 👻

LEG!!! you must determine for yourself whether Leg is a trick or a treat! happy halloween!

[theworldthatneverwas]

I think our player character might appear? Because dark road is in the same app as KHUX so it can use data from it too? I mean, it IS a continuation of KHUX. Maybe KHUX is trying to solve the problem and mystery while DR side is trying to know what happened to KHUX at the same time? By the way, I'm on the theory of Player having the X blade from the war. Maybe unknowingly because of memory loss.

Hmm very interesting points! It’s true that DR is accessed from the KHUx app so it’s entirely possible they’d be able to use our player character from there for scenes in Dark Road, which I admit would be very interesting. Technically DR is supposed to take place looooong after the war, given Luxu’s reports on how many many years have passed since the war and current-day KH. But to be fair, Subject X (who I still think is most likely to be Skuld; in the Character Files book it actually describes her as having black hair**) somehow made it to present-day KH, so it wouldn’t be a huge stretch to assume Player could come along for the ride.

From the KHUx update a few months ago, it looks like we’ve got 5 pods left. One is missing (presumably Maleficent took it), and one is damaged out of the seven original pods. The characters we *know* make it to the future somehow are Lauriam, Elrena, and Ventus, so we can assume they all get a pod somehow. That leaves a pod for Skuld, and a possible free pod for another character (Ephemer? Brain? Player?). Luxu makes it to the future by body-hopping so we can assume he isn’t using a pod, and we don’t know enough about Darkness to know if they come along either (or even require a pod to come along). Luxord and Demyx are said to have the “ancient keyblade legacy” slumbering within them but we haven’t seen them in KHUx yet, so if they’re both there somehow and need pods then we don’t have a pod for Skuld unless she uses the broken one and that’s how she ended up in the future as Subject X without her memories (though that would be an interesting take, for sure).

I haven’t really thought about Player getting the X blade; we don’t even fully understand how it appears/connects to Kingdom Hearts/what Kingdom Hearts does, but I can’t rule it out as a possibility. Given that Dark Road is in the same app as KHUx this is about the only game where it would be possible for Player to show up without forcing them into a specific appearance/gender, so I’d be down to see them in DR as well.

** Quoted directly for confirmation: カイリとともに、キーブレード使いとして秘密の森で修行に励む。ロクサス、シオン、アイザとは再会できたが、少年時代に出会った黒髪の少女のことも気にかけている。 

My translation: "Along with Kairi, he trains in the secret forest. He was able to reunite with Roxas, Xion, and Isa, but he still worries about a black-haired girl he knew in his youth."

[aeide-thea]

ahhhh lookit wee pollenfriend!!

[katbelleinthedark]

Fave song. Sesiously, though, the soundtrack in this film is AWESOME. (Ngl, Desi Girl is also a fab song.)