#entire industry. like the entire band will be affected. even harry | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

louisisalarrie · 2 months

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One thing is being a jewish that was brought up to believe in zi*nist ideas and willing to learn and change and another is actually funding the war and the military. They are never going to change their ideals and no wonder anyone around them won't speak up. Ben works with a group that recruits young israelis for the military over there and the Azoffs give huge amounts of money to them too and to the government. Harry knows this just like everyone in hollywood does.

You are correct. Harry, and everyone in the industry, knows what the Azoffs support, believe, and action. Everyone is too scared to speak up. It’s a monopoly and imagine it like this…

You have your dream job, your flourishing career, and you are so happy. You’re compromising to a degree, of course. You can’t say what you want to say, and share your beliefs. You can’t be yourself, and you and the other folks in your previous band, including the person you’re in love with, have to stay silent and obedient to the powers that be. Otherwise, you lose everything. They lose everything. You let them down if you say anything, and so you’re advised against it by being told that it’ll be better off for you, and the people you care about, by shutting up. You’re threatened sometimes, and chastised by being more yourself at any given moment.

But… you have the world at your feet, when a guy comes along and promises it to you. This guy who will manage you and give you more freedom. He says you can be more yourself, your fans will stay, and the people will love you. You can be close to coming out, teetering on the edge of being your entire true self. You can make your career even more you, but… you give up your dream if you speak out, about anything. Political beliefs, your sexuality, rights, wrongs, injustices in the world, bad treatment in your industry. And obviously you really wanna do that. You want to be the change. You want to be who you are, say what you believe, and help change the world for good.

But no one else is speaking out... And if you’re the first, well… it may look good for you in hindsight, but it’s not a “trend”. Everyone around you has advised against it. Not because of the fact that what you believe in is bad, per se, but that it will drastically affect your dream. You’re on the highest of highs, everyone loves you, but you need to stay perfectly neutral. You’re not upsetting anyone, nor pushing any buttons. You’re balanced, and the world isn’t looking to you for validation, because you’re not giving it. You’ve never said anything political before, so why now? Why when it’s gonna affect you at the height of your career, and you’re signed to the folks who will make you disappear in a split second? Why would you throw in the towel by dividing your fanbase yet again, going against your management who make your dreams come true, and losing the success you’ve worked so hard for?

If no one else is saying it, you can’t see how it will be received. Even then, if your managers believe otherwise and they have advised you not to speak out and have perhaps threatened you if you do, even if the public and crossover of fans between yourself and another fanbase receive another celebrity talking about it well, it still leaves you in a position which is too much of a gamble. You’re not a political figure. You have an influence on the world, sure, but isn’t it worth just shoving that deep down to continue your career which may have you come out/speak your true beliefs and be able to use your power for good at some point? Just one more year. Just 6 more months. Just 5 more years. You can do it. You can shove it aside to do what you love, and hope that your true self is seen by the fans and people you love. So, is it worth speaking your mind and potentially throwing everything away?

It’s hard to tell. So you stay silent, again. For now, anyway.

He’s being silenced, as they all are. Don’t make any rifts. Don’t make any divides. Stick with what works well, because it’s proven to work well. Shut up, get on with it, and sell some records.

#anon #answered

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gvftea · 2 years

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"Its also pretty dumb to say that if we dont support every single cause and boycott shein we're hypocrites who might as well just be racists. thats not how activism works"

See, this is why I say most people in this fandom have an evident lack of reading comprehension skills, because not once in my original comment did I say that people who buy fast fashion are racists and/or bad activists. I didn't even mentione anything regarding activism or racism at all so I literally don't know where you got that from. All I said was that someone who splurges hundreds of dollars several times a year on unethically made clothes and supports an industry that oppresses and exploits an entire group of people simply because they wanna 'look cute' while standing at a dimly lit stadium packed with people is in no position of virtue-signaling or calling out strangers for how shitty they supposedly are because they are, quite frankly, in the same boat as them. It's a common sense thing- If you're a shitty person, you don't get to point fingers at people you only vaguely know because of their association with a band. If you're gonna talk shit about Marcus King and his wife because 'their shitty beliefs affect the lives of others' then you gotta make sure you're not doing the same thing behind closed doors, otherwise just shut the fuck up.

"You guys do realize that not everyone can afford ethically made clothing ???? Like, we get you’re wealthy but please stop shaming poor people for buying what they can afford"

Again, serious lack of reading comprehension skills. Apparently you missed the entire chunk of my post where I said: And before anyone tries coming at me with the "judging people for buying fast fashion is classist, you can't ridicule people for not being able to afford anything else" I'm sorry but if can afford to follow four men across the country and attend three to four concert dates per tour plus traveling costs plus their overpriced merch, and besides that you can also afford to attend Harry Styles shows on the side, you can afford ethically made clothes."

Also, sorry to burst your bubble but as someone who is actually poor and who actually lives in one of the south American countries that has been turned into a fast fashion dump, let me tell you this: poor people, actually poor people, can't afford to go to concerts, much less buy front row tickets, several times a year. They can't afford hotel rooms or plane tickets either. They can't afford to take days off work to follow four men across the country. If you can afford the above you are not poor and should buy clothes more consciously.

#greta van fleet #gvf #josh gvf #sam gvf #jake gvf #josh kiszka #danny wagner #danny gvf #jake kiszka #sam kiskza

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seasurfacefullofclouds1 · 3 years

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hey, i was going through ur blog and i read the stuff u wrote about harry, ur opinions on the type of person he is and how larries and his solo fandom fail to see his "true colours" and all of that, and though i agree with most of it, some of it feels very stretched out to an extent.

like i used to be a larrie until recently, this holivia stuff kept bugging me a lot, i was new to the fandom and therefore easily influenced by the old hand larries who drag anyone with the slightest speck of suspicion regarding harry and louis' public narrative into their own fandom, bombard them with a hoard of larry videos from the old days of the band and so you can't even form an opinion for yourself by gradually going through all the content of an entire decade and instead end up nodding your head to whatever story the shippers feed you.

but holivia gave me a bad feeling, why was harry agreeing to this, larry blogs gaslight you, it's for the betterment of harry's career ffs, be supportive, don't you want him to flourish in the music industry and make a name for himself (though he already has a very acquisitive team as his backbone and will have ample of money falling at his feet nonetheless)either unstan(you're the scum of the earth if you do that btw) or continue to blindly support that rich white man like we do (the preferable choice)

but harry and olivia on the yacht made me think that they were talking things too far, this stunt would leave a permanent scar for sure and can prove to be a major setback for harry and louis in the future, for harry in the industry in general as a queer man starring in a movie with the entire main cast apart from him being publicly a part of the lgbtq community and he sticks out like a sore thumb there, and also why are they being so impulsive with the grandiosity of the displays of affection between h and o? isn't h being a little too materialistic and choosing to make l witness him with olivia all the time(it's his obligation, poor h) hanging out with jeff like he's always done, just gave me bad vibes overall, doesn't feel like the h we know at all(he's not that 16 year old you all know, ofcourse he's allowed to be ambitious and money hungry now, he's a grown 27 year old man with dick and balls) and why all of this? just to promote his movie that was rumoured to not be so great in itself?

so i scoured through some blogs discussing this particular aspect of h and L's relationship, maybe someone would understand me, found rad louie blogs and long story short, now im here.

but there's one feature of rad louie blogs that's just...not it. like y'all have probably heard this before, but i do agree that harry is pretty focused towards achieving wordly prosperity rather than a life of true harmony and settling down with someone he's fond of, had been, for over 10 years now. he just doesn't seem like the type of person who would stick by a person for so many years if they weren't someone he could either use and discard, or use and keep if they were shiny enough to keep for longer, use for being seen beside for a couple days so he's in the news or use to lend more weight to his carefully star studded image. so yes, he used his charming, polite, "kind" narrative to step over people, he surrounds himself with like minded individuals who can help him thrive in the industry without much talent, and though i do think he's talented, but he does get a lot of opportunities served in a platter to him and this is made possible for him as his management neutralizes competition from other artists of the time.

but what i don't agree with is the hyperbolic description of his so called plans since he was 19, i don't think his aim is to sabotage louis or anyone in particular, i agree that he has a sort of double image(he had one within the band too, he wasn't as friendly with his bandmates as he pretended to be in interviews and he didn't even fake it for the band, he did it for himself so he didn't make many enemies and there wasn't too much negative press against him and news of conflict started by him in the biggest boyband at the time, as he said that he didn't want to be the man who broke up the band ,zayn did and he got backlash for that but he was brave and got out of that shitty modest management which h couldn't do, or didn't want to, he had the azoffs behind him telling him to let zayn take the load of the band ending and he'd get away with it all) and he isn't what he seems like on the surface, which is easy for him as he keeps to himself, or atleast pretends to do so to ensure that people don't really get the chance to overanalyse his true self while his management does a great job at keeping his name floating everywhere even without him actually appearing to interact with his fans in person, all by good promotion tactics and using thier connections to spread good word of mouth about the person he is, drawing more fans in and thus increasing his exposure and making him succesfull in the process

and not to mention, the the mythical celebrity above everyone image is there too, but all these things sum up to him being greedy, but none of them are related to louis in particular. i agree that he did minimize the amount of challenges he was going to face from his former bandmates after the band ended by good marketing ideas and timings from his experienced manager that the other boys weren't privileged with unfortunately, but that doesn't explain anything about harry turning on louis after thy broke up and louis being the poor victim that larries and solo harries portray h to be. you guys are sensible and intellegent, but at the end of the day with your exaggerated statements of harry being extra cruel and spending his time trying to engineer louis' career downfall makes rad louies, harries and larries just different sides of the same coin.

this is long, but i rest my case here।

Hi there!

Thanks for the thorough ask, and I’ll post a few thoughts here, since I’ve addressed a lot of these points already.

I think our disagreement may come down to a question of Harry’s agency and intent— how much power does Harry really have? How is he actively directing his career, and what has he passively allowed to happen to him?

For example, did Harry actively work with Jeremy O. Harris or the producers of Euphoria to include the Larry fanfiction? If not, why did Harris mention him as an LGBT symbol for this episode?

Did Harry have the power to ask his styling assistant, Ryan Wohlgemut, to refrain from tweeting that Louis “can’t sing”?

We also disagree that Harry is targeting Louis personally. Partly this is an argument about sins of commission (is Harry actively doing it?) versus omission (does Harry let anti-Louis stuff happen around him, close to him?).

An example would be the promotion of Fine Line stacked on top of Walls promo— taking the shine away from Walls. Did Harry direct that? Probably not. Did he know about it and go along with it? Almost certainly.

Another example would be the way that Columbia Records PR mined Larry fanfiction to promote Adore You through Eroda.

On the anniversary of Jay’s death, the Visiteroda Twitter account liked a Larry tweet about “Louis the fish.” Did Harry have direct knowledge? Maybe not. Is it nevertheless part of his brand, and was it a cruel gesture? Yes to both counts.

One other point of contention that I would ask you is whether you feel Louis’ career has had abnormal roadblocks— sabotage— at all. It seems to be a Larrie head canon that somehow Louis chose everything for himself. If you don’t think the industry has conducted a strategic sabotage of Louis Tomlinson’s career, I don’t think my blog is for you. The evidence is damning.

As you said, Harry isn’t a boy anymore. He has worked with Jeff Azoff now for about eight years— they seem to be close, Harry is very invested (literally) in Jeff’s family holdings, and I reject the claim that Jeff does anything for Harry’s career that he hasn’t consulted Harry on. So you really have to ask yourself, when Harry closes his eyes to the obvious things we see, is he responsible? Or does he just “not see it”?

Btw I resent the characterization the Rads rely on head canons, “flip side of the coin” as Larries and Harries. I’ve cited numerous examples above and documented them through time. Read them here.

#harry styles

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lupin-for-president · 4 years

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Scorbus Headcanons

(Please tell me if you would like me to write a short fic off of any of these, because I love them)

Scorpius is insanely affectionate, don’t even try to argue with me on this one, you know it’s true

Even when he and Albus are still “just friends” he is touching him All. The. Time.

The worst part is Albus doesn’t even realize Scorp is doing it at this point because he’s just so used to all of this affection from him

James passes them in the library one day and sees Scorpius with his arms wrapped around his brother’s waist while Albus is looking on the shelves for a book and he’s just like “????”

When James asks Albus about it later he is just like “Oh, I didn’t even notice.”

By the time they start their third year no one in the school is sure whether they’re dating or just friends because they’re with each other 24/7

Albus does weird motherly things for Scorpius like fold his clothes and wipes the crumbs off of his face at dinner

Albus also picks out all of Scorpius’ clothes for when they go to Hogsmeade or other trips and complains the entire time which drives Scorpius mad

“You’d think coming from a family like yours you’d have more class, Scorp. Really, it’s almost shameful.”

“Well I’m sorry that you took more after my own father than I did, Al.”

Even though he has better fashion sense, Albus literally just walks around in their dorm shirtless and in grey sweats which drives Scorpius up the fucking wall

Albus gets jealous as hell any time someone apart from his family talks to Scorpius for more than fifteen minutes at a time and will pull him away without an explanation

“Al, that was rude! She was in the middle of her sentence!”

“I don’t fucking care what she was in the middle of, she was basically undressing you with her eyes and it was bloody disgusting.”

Scorpius just smiles and throws an arm around Albus’ shoulders whispering things like “Jealous, love?” and “You want to do that yourself?”

Albus blushes like crazy any time he gets called out for showing any interest at all in Scorpius and you can’t change my mind

The amount of sass in this relationship is unmatched. I mean, their father’s are Draco I-didn’t-know-you-could-read Malfoy and Harry No-need-to-call-me-sir-Professor Potter, would you expect anything less???

Like when they’re sitting on the couch in the common room

“Hey Scorp, mind running up to the dorm and grabbing my book for me?”

“I wasn’t aware I was your errand boy, Al. Would you like me to fetch you some supper next?”

Or when they’re in the middle of class working on a new Potion

“Al, you think you could lend me an extra hand over here?”

“Sure, but I actually really fancy having two, ya know. And the blood would be a real bugger to get out of my robes.”

Albus doesn’t even know what a chair is anymore because he’s always sitting in Scorpius’ lap, regardless of where they are and who they’re in front of

There is so much unintentional PDA between the two of them it is unreal

The first time Scorpius kisses Albus on the cheek in public it’s a total accident

He was on his way to study but Albus had scored a detention for backtalking a Professor so he had to separate from him for a few hours

Without thinking, he just leans in and places a quick peck to Albus’ cheek

He doesn’t even realize what he’s done until he turns around and comes face to face with a wide eyed Rose

“Scorpius, did you just do what I think you just did?” Rose asks, bewildered.

Oh, both the boys are completely flustered

On any given afternoon Scorpius can be found curled up in one of Albus’ sweaters and his face buried into his chest/neck

Albus just pretends he’s not there or lightly rubs his back or runs his hands through his hair

When Scorpius goes through his “rebellious” phase about mid fourth year, he convinces Albus to pierce his ears at like midnight on a Tuesday

To make Scorpius stop crying, Albus pierces his too

You can only imagine the slightly mortified look on Ginny’s face (and the immensely proud one on Teddy’s) when Albus comes home for Christmas modeling black studs

Albus ends up liking it so much that by the end of the week he has Teddy pierce a second set of holes, as well as give him an industrial in his right ear

Scorpius finds it hot as hell

Albus is bad about leaving marks all over Scorpius at all the wrong times

For instance, the night that he had dinner over at the Malfoy’s for the first time, Scorpius had three dark purple kisses painted on his pale skin from just a few days prior

Draco was glaring at Albus througout the whole meal

You should’ve seen the look McGonagall gave him, he nearly thought he was going to turn to stone

Right before summer break their sixth year, Scorpius goes through a huge “I stan Teddy Lupin and everything he does” phase and decides he wants to dye his hair

Albus refuses to do it (he loves that diamond blonde way too much)

When he walks into his dorm room one day to find Teddy (“How the hell did you even get in here?”) knuckle deep in a bowl of neon blue hair dye, he nearly loses it, but they’re already halfway done so he had to let him finish

When they all leave Hogwarts a week later for summer vacation, Draco calls the Potter-Weasley household

“Potter!”

“What, Malfoy?” Harry nearly groans, blowing out a huff of air.

“Not you, the younger Potter, the one snogging my son. Put him on the phone, I need to ask why Scorpius’ hair is the color of a fruit loop.”

Albus and Draco have a very heated conversation about how they both absolutely cannot believe that Scorpius would do something like this

Scorpius is dying of laughter in the background the entire time

During their last year at Hogwarts, Albus shows up with a set of rings, each a simple silver band, one with a green gem and the other a diamond

Scorpius nearly cries when Albus gives him the green gem one during breakfast, full on kissing him in front of everyone in the Great Hall

“They’re the color of our eyes. Thought it might be nice to have,” Albus shrugs nonchalantly, but there’s a blush painting the tips of his ears

They both wear them on the middle finger of their right hand (Albus’ is displayed quite often because of how much he flips Rose the bird)

The day of their graduation from Hogwarts, Scorpius cries

When Albus asks him what’s wrong, he nearly feels his entire heart shatter

“This doesn’t mean we’re over, does it? We’re not over just cause we’re done with school, are we? We’re still going to be together?”

Oh Albus is having none of that

“Of course, Scorp! You can’t get rid of me that easily,” Albus teases, kissing Scorpius over and over until the tears finally stop rolling down his cheeks

After they arrive back on platform 9 3/4, they’re inseparable.

Harry and Draco are losing their bloody minds with how much of the other’s son they’re seeing now

“God, Potter. You’d think he practically lived here.”

“I could say the same for yours, I might start charging him rent.”

One day while both the families are out together at a diner (it was Scorpius’ idea), Ginny makes the comment that if they just got a house of their own then it wouldn’t be a problem

She was joking, of course, but the boys took it 100% seriously

So about a month later they bought a small but nice house not too far from either of their parents

And it was there, in the middle of their newly furnished living room, that Albus proposed to Scorpius with another silver band

But this time, it went on his ring finger.

(These are the headcanons I was talking about hahah @ellavaneck)

#albus severus x scorpius #scorpius malfoy x albus potter #scorbus #scorpius malfoy #albus potter #scorpius x albus #albus x scorpius #harry potter next gen fic #harry potter next generation #scorbus headcanon #scorpius headcanon #albus severus headcanon

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dailytomlinson · 4 years

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When reflecting on music’s most influential artists, critics tend to use statistics to measure their legacy—whether it’s a band reaching #1 on the charts, multiple sold-out tours, or albums that represent a generation. Those types of accolades and praise are for bands that, typically, exist within rock with a predominantly sizeable male fanbase, like The Rolling Stones or The Beatles. For English-Irish boyband One Direction, who actually broke one of The Beatles biggest achievements by having five Top 10 debut tracks on the Hot 100 compared to The Beatles’ four, have sold out multiple tours and delivered five albums five years in a row, they have not been regarded as much of an influential force in the music industry as they should be.

Today—on July 23rd 2020—the band celebrates ten years since they first became a band, even if five years of that time was during a prolonged indefinite hiatus while each of the members pursued solo ventures. A decade marks ten years of One Direction and, for the fans, ten years of an impactful legacy the band, both together and apart, has had on their lives.

After being thrown together on The X-Factor back in July 2010, the band did more in five years than most bands do in their entire careers; they released five albums and sold more than 6.49 million copies in just America alone, filmed one concert documentary and one tour film, completed multiple world tours, and pursued philanthropic ventures. All of those things didn’t come without a price, though. Zayn Malik left the band in 2014 due to his mental health suffering. The band toured consistently every year with hardly ever having any personal time off, and add in an album release a year, they were extremely overworked.

There’s a belief boy bands have an expiry date, and it’s likely their management felt they needed to get as much out of the band while they believed they were still relevant. It’s likely that fans would’ve stuck around if the members took time between their albums and tours. In 2015, when the hiatus began, people wondered if One Direction really could ever come back and, if they did, would fans still really care about them?

“One Direction was one of the biggest and most successful bands,” said @TheHarryNews, a Twitter fan update account. “They achieved amazing things in the five years they were together, despite being overworked by putting out albums and touring every year, which isn’t normal.”

One specific thread that ties together every fans’ thoughts when they reflect on why they decided to become fans of the boys in the first place is the carefree and loving rapport the band has with one another. We’ve all seen The X Factor video diaries, laughed over their banter during interviews, and watched every live performance they did to look out for cute interactions between our favourite members. In their own unique way, One Direction helped defy traits typically associated with toxic masculinity; they didn’t shy away from their affection for one another and made that known in interviews and concerts. Their friendship set them apart, made them more real, and through them, we made friendships of our own.

When someone seeks out new friends, they go to where they feel safest: the communities of people who love the same things as they do. Social media not only propelled the band to international audiences, but it also helped many fans meet the people they now call their lifelong friends. “They have impacted my life in ways I never thought a ‘boyband’ could,” said Lauren, a fan from Buffalo, NY. “They gave me the best friends I could ever ask for, helped me when I was lost and thought I had no one. They ultimately helped me find myself.”

Social media did more than just help us make friends. It was also a major catalyst for the band’s success, and a large part is due to update accounts on Twitter that were created by fans, for fans. Fan-created update accounts would document every single movement and moment made by the band’s five members, whether it was live-streaming a concert or updating fans on the band’s whereabouts. For @With1DNews, a UK/Canada-based update account, it’s a labour of true love for the band that “glued them together” in the first place. “We found each other through our 1D fan accounts on Twitter,” they said. “We started talking about the boys, then our lives, and quickly became great friends.”

Even though they started the account after the hiatus already began, they still felt like fans needed One Direction news. “We had noticed there weren’t really any active 1D update accounts left and we knew a lot of fellow 1D fans were still interested in seeing news about the boys’ careers and lives. It was also because we missed seeing 1D together and hearing about them together. We thought, why not create this space that connects them even if they’re now all going their own way.”

Update accounts take as much time, effort, and energy as an unpaid second job; it requires those who run them to schedule themselves accordingly to cover certain times of each day to ensure their fellow fans get updated in a timely manner, and they do as much fact-checking and researching that any other traditional news outlet does.

Even if some critics might not consider One Direction an influential force in the music industry, the impact they continue to have on their fans is what has set them apart from every other musical act. In a scene in One Direction’s concert documentary, This Is Us, a fan breathlessly states “I know they love me, even if they don’t know me.” This type of parasocial relationship to a band is something not many understand; it’s a sense of intimacy that doesn’t require either party to actually deeply know one another on a personal level but is still as meaningful and significant as actual relationships.

A connection with the band is even more prevalent for Amy, a Los Angeles based writer and mum of two, because of the impact the band has had on her family is something that isn’t tangible but has been detrimental to her children’s development. “I have a child with physical and neurological disabilities who, prior to One Direction, was completely non-verbal and really struggling to find motivation and happiness amongst all the doctors and therapy appointments,” stated Amy. “They have done more for her development, including indirectly teaching her to speak and sing, than any therapy she’s ever done. Up until we found the boys, everything was trial and error; trying to find what makes sense to her and would, in turn, make the world make sense to her. Who knew the key would be a ‘silly’ boy band?”

Many fans have expressed that the band is their happy place – the only positive light in their life when things got tough. For so many, the band came at a time when they desperately needed something to help them through difficult situations whether that be pressure from school, jobs, peers, or life in general. Watching the ‘Best Song Ever’ music video, or a funny interview felt like a cure to smile and laugh after a long day. “They were what we turned to when we felt overwhelmed in our own lives. Now, we’re adults, and they still bring us as much happiness as they did when we were younger,” says @With1DNews.

Not only that, but the band has also helped fans gain more confidence in themselves. By helping create a space and community for them, fans who may have felt lonely, different, or struggled to find a place they belonged had somewhere to go now. They made friends who accepted them, endless content that felt like a burst of serotonin, and a band of boys who told them through lyrics how great and valuable they are, songs like ‘Through the Dark’, ‘Diana’, and ‘Little Things’. Through the band, One Direction fans created their own safe space to work out and navigate their own identity; a space that is free from outside shame where they could be whoever they wanted to be because the people they loved the most accepted them for exactly who they are.

Despite the safety found in those spaces, others have given those fans different descriptions: Hysterical. Rabid. Extra. ‘Screamers.’ Those are just a few of the many words that have been used to describe female fans of boy bands, both past and present. Although these words carry negative connotations, they imply something more powerful than any naysayer could understand or try to define: the sheer force that comes with unashamedly loving something so deeply, you don’t really care about anyone else’s opinions.

Young female fans are the most supportive, passionate fanbase an artist can have, yet they are the most trivialized and ridiculed both within and outside of the music industry. At the start of their career, music’s most beloved band The Beatles was a boy band that catapulted into fame because of, not despite, their female fans. It wasn’t until male fans noticed the band’s progression into an experimental sound when they decided to embrace the band and deem them worthy of their support after they began playing ‘real’ music.

Even if there are major similarities between The Beatles and One Direction, the latter is still regarded by many to be a manufactured pop boy band with a ‘teenybopper’ fanbase. The members of the band have consistently embraced and validated their predominantly female fanbase; Harry Styles has been consistently vocal about this matter, going so far as to say “Teenage-girl fans — they don’t lie. If they like you, they’re there. They don’t act ‘too cool.’ They like you, and they tell you.”

In ‘Girl Almighty’, the fifth track on their fourth album, Four, the band addressed the way their fans have been misjudged and labelled ‘crazy’ because of their passion and not only applauded them for their dedication and love, but bowed down to them as well; “Let’s have another toast to the girl almighty […] I get down on my knees for you.” Not only has One Direction always known who helped them get to where they are today, but they’ve also never shied away from declaring their respect for them, constantly validating their fans’ feelings.

For One Direction’s fans, a decade of the band’s formation represents ten years of a legacy that will continue on, even if the band never formally get back together. For Amy, it doesn’t really matter if they got their start on a TV talent show because it’s the fans that made them and set the band apart from every other boyband. “What we all created together feels so untouchable in regards to boy bands of the past and ones to come. I think people will look back in awe and see what we see; we’ve been so incredibly lucky to have witnessed the magic of One Direction.”

They might not be aware of it, but One Direction was incredible at predicting what was to come in their own music; “Who’s gonna be the first to say goodbye?” / “But it’s not the end, I’ll see your face again” / “We had some good times, didn’t we? We wore our hearts out on our sleeve” / “We could be the greatest team that the world has ever seen.” In ‘Best Song Ever’, a song that ordinary listeners would not exactly consider overly sentimental or profound, there is one lyric that will always stand out for the fans to represent One Direction’s legacy perfectly: “I hope you’ll remember how we danced.” Ten years later, we haven’t forgotten.

#tmrw magazine #230720 #10years1d #press

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1962dude420-blog · 3 years

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Today we remember the passing of Warren Zevon who Died: September 7, 2003, Los Angeles, California

Warren William Zevon was an American rock singer-songwriter and musician. Zevon's most famous compositions include "Werewolves of London", "Lawyers, Guns and Money", and "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner", all of which are featured on his third album, Excitable Boy (1978), whose title track is also well-known. He also wrote major hits that were recorded by other artists, including "Poor Poor Pitiful Me", "Accidentally Like a Martyr", "Mohammed's Radio", "Carmelita", and "Hasten Down the Wind". Along with his own work, he recorded or performed occasional covers, including Allen Toussaint's "A Certain Girl", Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", Leonard Cohen's "First We Take Manhattan", Steve Winwood's "Back in the High Life Again", and Prince's "Raspberry Beret".

Zevon's early music industry successes were found as a session musician, jingle composer, songwriter, touring musician, musical coordinator & bandleader. Despite all this, Zevon struggled to break through in his solo career, until his music was performed by Linda Ronstadt, beginning in 1976 with her album Hasten Down the Wind. This launched a cult following that lasted for 25 years, with Zevon making occasional returns to album and single charts until his death from cancer in 2003. He briefly found a new audience in the 1980s by teaming up with members of R.E.M. in the blues rock outfit Hindu Love Gods.

Known for his dry wit and acerbic lyrics, he was a guest numerous times on Late Night with David Letterman and the Late Show with David Letterman.

In 1978, Zevon released Excitable Boy (produced by Jackson Browne and guitarist Waddy Wachtel) to critical acclaim and popular success. The title tune is about a juvenile sociopath's murderous prom night and referred to "Little Susie", the heroine of the song "Wake Up Little Susie" made famous by his former employers the Everly Brothers. Other songs such as "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" and "Lawyers, Guns and Money" used deadpan humor to wed geopolitical subtexts to hard-boiled narratives. Tracks from this album received heavy FM airplay, and the single release "Werewolves of London", which featured Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, was a relatively lighthearted work featuring Zevon's signature macabre outlook that reached No. 21 on the charts.

Critic Dave Marsh, in The Rolling Stone Record Guide (1979), called Zevon "one of the toughest rockers ever to come out of Southern California". Rolling Stone record reviews editor Paul Nelson called the album "one of the most significant releases of the 1970s" and placed Zevon alongside Neil Young, Jackson Browne, and Bruce Springsteen as the four most important new artists to emerge in the decade. On May 11, 1980, Zevon and Willie Nile appeared on the King Biscuit Flower Hour.

In 1983, the recently divorced Zevon became engaged to Philadelphia disc jockey Anita Gevinson and moved to the East Coast. After The Envoy was poorly received by critics, Asylum Records ended their business relationship with Zevon, which Zevon discovered only when he read about it in the "Random Notes" column of Rolling Stone. Following these career setbacks, he relapsed into drug and alcohol abuse. In 1984, he voluntarily checked himself into a rehab clinic in Minnesota. His relationship with Gevinson ended shortly thereafter. Zevon retreated from the music business for several years, except for playing live solo shows; during this time he finally overcame severe alcohol and drug addictions.

During this period, Zevon collaborated with Bill Berry, Peter Buck and Mike Mills (of R.E.M.), along with backup vocalist Bryan Cook to form a minor project called Hindu Love Gods. The group released the non-charting single "Narrator" for IRS Records in 1984, then went into abeyance for several years.

Berry, Buck and Mills served as the core of Zevon's next studio band when he re-emerged in 1987 by signing with Virgin Records and recording the album Sentimental Hygiene. The release, hailed as his best since Excitable Boy, featured a thicker rock sound and taut, often humorous songs like "Detox Mansion", "Bad Karma" (which featured R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe on backup vocals), and "Reconsider Me". Included were contributions from Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Flea, Brian Setzer, and George Clinton, as well as Berry, Buck, and Mills. Also on hand were Zevon's longtime collaborators Jorge Calderón and Waddy Wachtel.

In interviews, Zevon described a lifelong phobia of doctors and said he seldom consulted one. He had started working out, and he looked physically fit. Shortly before playing at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival in 2002, he started feeling dizzy and developed a chronic cough. After a period of suffering with pain and shortness of breath, Zevon was encouraged by his dentist to see a physician; he was diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma, a cancer (usually caused by exposure to asbestos) that affects the pleura, a thin membrane around the lungs and chest lining. Zevon was deeply shaken by the news and began drinking again after 17 years of sobriety.

Although Zevon never revealed where he may have been exposed to asbestos, his son, Jordan, suggests that it came from Zevon's childhood, playing in the attic of his father's carpet store in Arizona. Refusing treatments he believed might incapacitate him, Zevon instead began recording his final album, The Wind, which includes performances by close friends including Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Jackson Browne, Timothy B. Schmit, Joe Walsh, David Lindley, Billy Bob Thornton, Emmylou Harris, Tom Petty, and Dwight Yoakam. At the request of the music television channel VH1, documentarian Nick Read was given access to the sessions and made the television film Inside Out: Warren Zevon.

Friend Jackson Browne reunited with Zevon for his final album On October 30, 2002, Zevon was featured on the Late Show with David Letterman as the only guest for the entire hour. The band played "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" as his introduction. Zevon performed several songs and spoke at length about his illness. Zevon had been a frequent guest and occasional substitute bandleader on Letterman's television shows since Late Night was first broadcast in 1982. He noted, "I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." It was during this broadcast that, when asked by Letterman if he knew something more about life and death now, he first offered his oft-quoted insight on dying: "Enjoy every sandwich." He also thanked Letterman for his years of support, calling him "the best friend my music's ever had". For his final song of the evening, and his final public performance, Zevon performed "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" at Letterman's request. In the green room after the show, Zevon presented Letterman with the guitar that he always used on the show, with a single request: "Here, I want you to have this, take good care of it." The day after Zevon's death, Letterman paid tribute to him by replaying his performance of "Mutineer" from his last appearance. The Late Show band played Zevon's songs throughout the night.

Zevon stated previously that his illness was expected to be terminal within months after diagnosis in late 2002. However, he lived to see the birth of twin grandsons in June 2003 and the release of The Wind on August 26, 2003. Owing in part to the first VH1 broadcasts of Nick Read's documentary Warren Zevon: Keep Me in Your Heart, the album reached number 12 on the U.S. charts, Zevon's highest placement since Excitable Boy. When his diagnosis became public, Zevon wryly told the media that he just hoped to live long enough to see the next James Bond movie (Die Another Day), a goal he accomplished.

Zevon died of mesothelioma on September 7, 2003, aged 56, at his home in Los Angeles. His body was cremated, and his ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean near Los Angeles.

#September 7 #2003 #R.I.P.#Warren Zevon

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rethesun · 3 years

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Is there a name for middle lane larries?

Topic: An opinion on larry

I think there is substantial compelling evidence, but I'm not 100% convinced that there is still something but it’s possible there is we just don’t see.

If someone calls me a larrie, it's not insulting at all, but if someone were to call me an anti i’d be sad, honestly. Below I say many things that make it seem like I negatively judge hardcore larries, but I don't. I find it extraordinary that people can be so brave and sure of themselves, and I wish I could be too. I tend to get along with larries, while I mostly avoid antis unless they manage to be respectful, which is unfortunately quite rare.

I think it's practically effortless to get toxic when trying to prove or disprove things. I think it's dehumanizing and feels stressful to me as a fan. Therefore I can only imagine the difficulty and what it takes for people in a position of fame to get to a place of inner strength and resilience where the millions of opinions of the world don't affect them as much. It's sometimes hard to judge/differentiate what is and isn't disrespectful, and it hurts terribly to know I'm crossing boundaries. So I'm putting my opinion together in hopes it isn't as counterproductive or pointless as it feels.

I'm not at all trying to convince anyone of a narrative to sway people to believe or not believe. What and how much you know and where you "stand" is down to you.

Do I believe in larry?

First and foremost, being a fan of someone means supporting that person without expecting anything from them. It means any fan theory isn't crucial. What’s important is just supporting them as is, as an individual. It means caring about how the person may feel about things more than caring about how I feel about things that aren't my business in the first place.

That said, here is my not long-awaited opinion.

I think there is substantial compelling evidence, but I'm not 100% convinced that there is still something but it’s possible there is we just don’t see. I will not disregard what Harry and Louis said back in the day and pretend they had nothing when at the very least, Harry said it on video directly twice. Yes, he was a kid, but people will decide Harry is with a skinny blonde woman older than him for much less, so I don't take what he said as a platonic joke. However, I try to be as realistic as possible. As an outsider, it's not easy for my brain to conclude on most things. However, this doesn't mean I disregard how bad the industry can be. One big reason is that I don't know any of these people personally, and I want to believe in the best in others. Even though I understand controlling narratives in the industry happens and happened to 1D. I don't know to what extent. It's hard for me to judge that any or all of Harry's "relationships" are fake, and thus, he's had a few "stunt" songs for those relationships, etc. It’s plausible that he wrote female pronouns on a song or a few and the song refers to a man/men but that's far from saying this is a stunt song which would imply an entire fake relationship which is too far for me to say wasn't real as I am just an outsider.

Whether people say it's the fans who say it or the boys behavior, the statement, 'larries ruined their friendship,' is sometimes interpreted as centered around homophobia. I do not see it this way.

However, whether there was or is a relationship, it's entirely reasonable to consider, the circumstances as a whole hurt them and likely the rest of the band in multiple ways that made things really hard. I do not think fans ruined the band or their connections with each other. I think being overworked with little freedom or breaks to discover/express independence were just a few reasons why.

Why I think larry appeared to become distanced to the public eye: 1. Understandably, putting blame on the heteronormative gender restrictive times we were in and still are in. 2. How some fans react to Larry's interactions due to reason number one. Otherwise, all the 1D members, their families, and friends have been honest. That would mean there isn't an elaborate conspiracy; they are just tired of people messing with who they care about and want to live without the harassment. Regardless of whether some fan theories are accurate or not, people in the spotlight and their families deserve peace of mind. They don't deserve to be dehumanized. I wish some fans would understand how wrong it is to swarm people or ask strangers to confirm any personal things. Not only because it's rude and invasive but because of mental health. If that's confusing, imagine if it were you in their position.

I used Zayn's interview because he shared it eloquently while the other mentions that ‘Larry isn't real’ were mostly screen captures of constituents replying impatiently to larry comments on social media saying the Larry thing is delusion and not what real fans do. Zayn in this 2015 fader interview. "There's no secret relationships going on with any of the band members," he explains. "It's not funny, and it still continues to be quite hard for them. They won't naturally go put their arm around each other because they're conscious of this thing that's going on, which is not even true. They won't do the natural behavior." He goes on to add to the statement, "But it's just the way the fans are. They're so passionate, and once they get their head around an idea, that's the way it is regardless of anything. If it wasn't for the passionate, like almost obsession, then we wouldn't have the success that we have." Before the subject changes, Zayn said that fans would find a way to water down what he said and make any excuses, e.g., that he couldn't speak the truth.

I can't speak for anyone but myself. (I’m a queer cis female) I don't think I would want to 'get dragged through a round of 'coming out' press. Why should sexuality be treated as an oddity by the median, and why should queer people have to subject themselves to that treatment?' The amount of coming out stories and things that could follow a person, or the people around, in the aftermath, would be atrocious. People, personally and professionally, may treat you differently after. The queer stereotypes would be exhausting. Also, it's not always as safe sometimes to be out. Whether there was/is a relationship at all between 1D members. “Being open to everyone isn't easy. Now imagine yourself no less human than right now, but add millions of eyes on you. It's insensitive to assume about someone when they could be doing their best/what is comfortable—please let's stop invalidating what we don't understand.”

Zayn's career connects to Hollywood, and he’s in the spotlight so it's not easy to suddenly believe everything I hear and see is the truth just because someone like him said it. However, at the same time, it's rather discomforting for me to disregard and look into everything people like Zayn or his constituents say. I want to believe the best in people and sympathize and “back him up” in a sense. It's also way to hard to believe all things other fans say because we are passionate and obsessed, so there is confirmation bias.

Do I concretely believe anything?

Yes, but those things don't directly confirm or deny anything especially Larry.

I believe the boys were responsible for RBB & SBB.

I have some reason to believe the song Carolina could be about experimentation with drugs since Johnny Cash's Cocaine-Carolina song is plausibly similar. Also, it's not uncommon if you're wealthy or famous to experiment with drugs, including harmful drugs; the environment can make it more accessible and normalized. I don't condone drug abuse; I hope Harry is wise enough not to make it a reoccurring thing. I want him naturally happy and healthy, but it's not my life, and I don't know him to have any right in making that call. I trust from Harry's character and what he said in his Zane Lowe interview that he knows better. However, the song Carolina might be about Townes or maybe it's both, I have no clue.

I believe SOTT is about "fundamentals" like Harry said it is, not just from the perspective of 'a mother telling the child to go forth and conquer.' I notice some people readily look over the childbirth story, saying 'it makes no sense,' but it can easily coincide with fundamentals, "Equal rights for everyone, all races sexes, everything." Check out this in depth lyric analysis?

I think most of us know and support that Harry is a proud member of the community. If he wasn’t he’d just say that.

I think maybe COAC and SOTT may have been collaborative. There are multiple writers on both songs and if it’s possible to have a ghost writer then I say it's plausible they chose to write them similarly.

I think Louis possibly queer codes. Straight people don’t queer code so you might think it’s queer baiting but I don’t think someone sick of gay rumors would go that route. Either that, or he's a passionate and sympathetic ally.

However, Louis is still "with" E. From a perspective of committed fans, it doesn't look like a sincere relationship. As an outsider, again, it feels far too presumptuous for me to have a B&W opinion.

It seems that adults with somewhat official platforms let rumors run rampant, and not many grown adults of the time seemed to correct or silence it. I should have said this early and cannot stress this enough, ANYONE who is not the Louis Tomlinson or in his family tree is in no way an official source. If they're acting like they know things (not just reporting on what's happening), they were/are either trolling or want people to freak out for clout. Being led astray by people looking to capitalize on fans is always a danger. It's insensitive, inappropriate, and unprofessional, but it happened. I am surprised by that and that 1D's management didn't try to protect Louis and his image more. I’m not an insider able to judge him negatively or to overanalyze the situation. So I won't assume he's not a dad, and I hope he's doing well.

(About the above paragraph about Louis this is an update after the original post I made to say I don't have a further developed opinion because I never looked into it and don't know if I will so don't hold that against me please I just personally don't feel like it’s a thing I need to do and I know larries don’t appreciate when non-larries make comments on things without thoroughly looking into things so you won’t see a further opinion from me or judgment unless I do actual research)

In conclusion, and to reiterate, I feel like there is some truth to some things. Again, it feels disrespectful or too presumptuous for me to have many opinions, especially of the negative kind, as an outsider. I don't know any of these people personally, and I want to believe in the best in others. I am not harshly judging things because I don't have a complete story or the right to. However, this doesn't mean I disregard how bad the industry can be to people in multiple ways.

As fans, we can do much better. It's not unreasonable to wish people didn't constantly objectify/sexualize people with fame and didn't harass them/their families about fan theories. Also, always wanting something from these people and expecting them to fulfill god-like expectations as if they don't go through the same human experience and aren't completely flawed like the rest of us, or stalking them—something sick and a behavior that's saddening and disgusting. Real fans just leave them be to live their lives. Please call out stalking and discourage it if you notice it. Overall, I think we can all be a bit more respectful and understanding or try to make an effort. I'm not a superfan, but I'd like to be genuine and not a reason why these people dislike being in the spotlight. I feel like that means being as grounded, realistic, and sensitive about how these people may feel about things more than caring about how I feel about things that aren't my business in the first place. It ultimately means any fan theory isn't crucial. What’s important is just supporting them as is, as individual.

[#’s are for exposure and may not correlate]

#larry #music industry #1d #fans #one direction #harry styles #liam payne #nial horan #zayn mailk #louis tomilson #an opinion on larry #rethesun #source: me

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ingek73 · 5 years

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Royals

8 Designers on What It’s Like to Dress Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex

8 Slides

By Gina Marinelli

August 2, 2019

Meghan Markle arrives at the Terrance Higgins Trust World AIDS Day charity fair at Nottingham Contemporary on December 1...

Christopher Furlong

Everyone remembers their first time. They compare it to feeling like a kid on Christmas morning and recall their phones exploding with more notifications than humanly possible to respond to. Some need to take a step back in order to fully understand the significance of the moment—when Meghan Markle gave their fashion brand her personal stamp of approval.

Influencer marketing may be powerful, but these brands can attest: Not much compares to the Duchess of Sussex's being photographed wearing one of your pieces, triggering the Meghan Markle Effect. It can shift conversations entirely for those already established brands, and it can throw a little-known at-home operation onto the global stage in an instant.

“In terms of growing our business exponentially, Meghan has enabled us to do this in a very tangible, immediate way,” says James Bartle, founder and CEO of Outland Denim. The Australian brand is on a mission to create responsibly made denim while supporting ethical work conditions, especially in its facility in Cambodia. Markle wore the label repeatedly during her royal tour of Australia in 2018, and its sales skyrocketed, allowing the under-the-radar business to grow. “You cannot put a price on the brand recognition nor the credibility that the duchess is able to bestow on a small, socially oriented enterprise such as ours,” says Bartle.

Outland's success story isn't unique. Many other designers that the Duchess of Sussex has touched since her public persona shifted from actress to royalty, British Vogue guest editor, curator of her own fashion collection, and [pal to Beyoncé],(https://www.glamour.com/story/beyonce-meghan-markle-lion-king) can attest to her impact. In their own words, the designers ahead explain exactly what happened when Markle wore their creations.

1/8

Sentaler

Meghan Markle was initially introduced to Sentaler when she visited the flagship showroom while living in Toronto. She had been seen wearing Sentaler coats in Toronto while out and about as well as while she was filming Suits. Before her engagement to Prince Harry, it was amazing to see her continue to wear the brand. She was seen wearing the Sentaler Royal Baby Alpaca Classic Wrap in Sand Grey, which instantly spiked global demand and we now call the Meghan Wrap.

The most significant appearance—and one of the most memorable days for me as a designer—was when Meghan once again appeared in Sentaler during her first official appearance with the queen, during the Christmas service in Sandringham in 2017. She wore the Long Wide Collar Wrap Coat in Camel, a signature style that has been in my collections from the early days. She styled it impeccably, and I was so honored that she chose to wear Sentaler on such a significant day for her.

Meghan appeared in Sentaler once again in early 2019, wearing the Long Wide Collar Wrap Coat in our fall 2019 Color of the Year, Scarlet Red. This was one of Meghan’s most memorable appearances. The bold, unconventional red and purple color combination was striking and so perfectly put together.

We've experienced the Meghan Markle Effect many times. The impact of her appearances are tremendous and always cause a major spike in our e-commerce traffic and social media channels. Every coat she has worn has immediately sold out and gone on multiple back orders, while also causing similar ripple effects throughout our entire product offerings. We received media attention and awareness from all over the world. She's an incredible style icon, and her influence is simply palpable. —Bojana Sentaler, president and creative director of Sentaler

2/8

Karen Walker

Her royal highness’s style feels very authentic to me. It isn’t forced at all—it’s real and captures her personality. That’s what people love about her approach to fashion.

She first wore our designs in 2014 and many times since, but I think my favorite moment would have to be when she emerged from a plane, after touching down in New Zealand, wearing our Banks Trench. It was a thrill to have her first official appearance in my country wearing one of our pieces—and wearing it so well.

Obviously, anytime the right product is worn by the right person at the right time, there’s a commercial impact. We’ve been lucky enough to experience that on countless occasions with all sorts of people and from all areas of our work. However, with her royal highness, there was something even more: an interest, intrigue, and genuine curiosity about her that reaches past any other notable person we’ve ever had wear our pieces. She’s probably the person I get asked about most, and I think that that speaks to the real affection people have for her. —Karen Walker

3/8

Charlotte Elizabeth

On March 23, 2018, the Duchess of Sussex stepped off a plane in Belfast, where she was attending a royal engagement alongside Prince Harry. This was one of their final outings before the wedding, so the Meghan Markle Effect was in full force. At the time Charlotte Elizabeth was running from my bedroom—among bags here, there, and everywhere in my parents' house!—so it felt monumental seeing the duchess happily wearing the Chestnut Bloomsbury bag so beautifully among other well-respected designers. It was the most surreal day of my life.

Within seconds of the duchess wearing the Bloomsbury, we had orders from around the world. Our Instagram pretty much broke my phone. At that moment in time, I was a one-man band, so it was a pretty crazy experience, to say the least!

Over the weekend that followed the royal engagement, I began to realize the [impact of] the Meghan Markle Effect. Because each bag was handmade, we had to extend the wait time to eight months. We worked tirelessly to fulfill every order. It was tough to go from bedroom business to a larger one overnight and sacrifice other parts of life, but I have learned so many invaluable lessons throughout this experience, which has set me up for our future at Charlotte Elizabeth. An industry expert told me that what I experienced in a year was what most start-ups would in 10 years, so I’m grateful for every lesson and challenge I learned from.

Eventually we caught up with our wait list, which was the greatest sense of relief ever. I ordered myself a big cheesy pizza and I finally got some sleep (without dreaming of packing up bags for delivery)! I'm really excited to announce that we will be launching new Charlotte Elizabeth products later this year. It really is down to each and every individual supporting us to get us to where we are and where we are going. I'm deeply grateful to have been given such a tremendous opportunity and wish to use our success to inspire other women to go after their own dreams.

If I’m totally honest, it definitely didn’t sink in for about a year…. I have loved watching the gentle transition of Meghan’s style since announcing her pregnancy through now. As women, we all experience changes throughout our life that influence how we wish to portray ourselves in the world through fashion and beauty. It must be even tougher in the scrutiny of the public eye to go through such changes, but the duchess continues to inspire through her fashion choices and ability to create a look according to the event. Meghan gives us all a sense of realness, and ability to re-create attainable looks fit for a duchess! —Charlotte Elizabeth Jones, founder of Charlotte Elizabeth

4/8

Outland Denim

The first time the Duchess of Sussex appeared in Outland Denim was October 17, 2018, during the duke and duchess's visit to Dubbo. At the time I was in Cambodia visiting our production facility. I woke up to hundreds of notifications on my phone. Our staff couldn't quite believe a duchess was wearing our jeans! Meghan continued to wear her Harriet Black jeans several times during that visit.

Meghan's choosing to wear Outland Denim once is a reflection of alignment with our values. But the fact that she has chosen to wear the brand multiple times shows her preference for the product’s fit, comfort, and style, and perhaps a desire to help us achieve our mission as well. It's her subtle, dignified way of saying she cares about the work we are doing.

Meghan has opened doors for Outland Denim. She’s enabled us to not only create visibility for our brand globally but also to tell our story around the employment of vulnerable women and sustainability. Retailers, the media, and the public alike have been very keen to get to know Outland Denim thanks to her endorsement.

The immediate effect of the duchess's wearing the jeans was a website traffic increase of 3,000% to our home site and about 948% to our global group of sites. Sales increased 640% for the week following the first sighting of Meghan in our jeans. The black Harriet jeans she wore sold out in Australia in the first 24 hours.

Thanks to the Meghan Markle Effect, we were able to employ a further 46 seamstresses in our Cambodian production. When you think about the fact that what we try to do with Outland is imbue our staff members in Cambodia with a sense of dignity in their work and their value as human beings, a quiet, dignified royal endorsement such as this—while unofficial, in the sense that we don't have a Kensington Palace seal/badge—is incredibly helpful. —James Bartle, founder and CEO of Outland Denim

5/8

Strathberry

We were simply delighted when Meghan Markle chose to carry our Strathberry Midi Tote during her first royal engagement with Prince Harry in Nottingham in 2017. Then seeing her in our hometown of Edinburgh with our East/West Mini was an absolute honor. Her outing in Dublin was a special one for me, being from the Emerald Isle.

Immediately following her first outing in Nottingham, we saw sales increase considerably (by 200% to 300%). Visitor numbers to the website were also amazing. At one stage, they were up tenfold against our daily average. We had already started to take the brand international, but the support from Markle has definitely helped elevate Strathberry further. It has been such an exciting time of growth for the brand. We now employ over 30 people in our Edinburgh headquarters, with smaller teams working in Spain, London, and China. We have also just opened our second flagship store on London’s iconic Mount Street, following the opening of our first boutique in Burlington Arcade last November.

Meghan Markle always looks elegant and effortless. She mixes high-end designers with more affordable brands, which makes her style more relatable and approachable. It's also fantastic that she has been willing to support smaller brands, which in turn helps to promote and grow these labels. —Leeanne Hundleby, founder and co-owner of Strathberry

6/8

Nonie

Meghan Markle's style today has seen an incredible evolution as she’s embraced royal standards while still honoring her personal taste. She brings a modern, contemporary approach with regal flair. More than anything, I think she radiates her personality through her clothing. She knows who she is and isn’t afraid to be herself with her personal expression in fashion.

When Markle wore the classic Sleeveless Trench in Blush as a dress to the Nelson Mandela Centenary Exhibition in July 2018, it marked a monumental moment for both myself and the brand. Her effortless approach to style radiated impeccably through photos, and I think she styled it perfectly. I was tremendously honored to have her royal stamp of approval and see her nod to her previous home in Canada by supporting Canadian designers. Her unofficial endorsement helped change the future of the brand, something I'm forever grateful for.

I still feel the effect today—it's incredible. The moment she wore the trench, we sold out immediately and had a generous wait list. Because of the demand, we had to go to the mill and produce more fabric specifically for the trench dress. To this day, we're still producing the trench! Markle's support has aided in generating international recognition and global exposure for the brand on an expedited time frame. The global reaction was immediate. —Nina Kharey, founder and creative director of Nonie

7/8

Adina Reyter

The first time was the best. Meghan Markle wore the 3 Amigos Diamond post earrings to her first public engagement with the queen. I spotted my piece on the cover of a magazine—a profile of her face, a beautiful smile—and I felt a rush of excitement and shock. How did she get my earrings? Am I dreaming? We jumped through hoops in the office to figure out how this could have happened and figured out she had bought them on her own. Totally thrilling! Meghan has since worn two additional pieces, the Pavé Diamond Teardrop Necklace and Large Pavé Curve Wing Earrings, many times.

I loved the way she styled each piece—sometimes formal, most times casual. She seemed to have never taken them off, which is exactly how I designed them. Meghan’s style is simple, classic, chic, and most important, accessible. Fashion doesn’t have to be incredibly costly, and women are smart shoppers: They want to invest in pieces that are going to last. Meghan exemplifies the woman who trusts her own taste and doesn't chase trends. The fact that she chooses to wear us over and over is an honor and a testament to our brand identity: accessible fine jewelry that is designed for everyday wear.

Every time Meghan Markle appears in our jewelry, it immediately sells out on adinareyter.com and with our retailers. When Meghan wore our Diamond Pavé Teardrop Necklace, it sold out online within minutes and with all retailers nationwide by end of day. One of our most popular retailers reordered the necklace nine times and still can’t keep it in stock! —Adina Reyter

8/8

Theia

It was her royal highness's visit to the island nation of Tonga, where she wore a custom Theia gown to the state dinner hosted by the king and queen at Nuku'alofa. I felt like a six-year-old on Christmas morning! I was running around the house screaming with delight at 5:25 a.m.

It was a remarkable vote of confidence in Theia, to have been chosen to be included in that all-important royal tour, knowing every outfit would be scrutinized by the entire world. Her royal highness looked absolutely radiant, and the positive reviews she received the world over in our ivory gown were thrilling. She styled the gown with a black Givenchy clutch and the Aquazzura slingbacks. The icing on the cake was the fabulous aquamarine ring that once belonged to Princess Diana and was a gift to the duchess from her husband, the Duke of Sussex. I couldn’t have wished for a greater endorsement of my work and our brand.

Our brand was instantly talked about around the world. We're still trying to determine the long-term effect it had, but we saw huge spikes in our Instagram and web traffic. The day she wore it, we saw an additional 42,000 views on our Instagram profile and an additional 13,000 visits to our website.

The effect has been remarkable. The entire nation of Ireland collectively shared in my elation. "We" had dressed the Duchess of Sussex, and a wave of national pride swept across the nation. It truly was a remarkable day for me, my family, my colleagues here at Theia, and practically everyone on Ireland.

Her royal highness is chic, elegant, and modern. She’s a marvelous role model and an intelligent woman with an all-inclusive view of the world. And I love her clean, streamlined choices. —Don O'Neill, creative director of Theia

#meghan markle #duchess of sussex #glamour #fashion #brf #royalty #designers

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edharrisdaily · 4 years

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What It Means to Stage To Kill a Mockingbird in 2019

The Broadway adaptation’s writer and star—Aaron Sorkin and Ed Harris, respectively—talk about updating and paying homage to Harper Lee’s American classic today.

The first line of Aaron Sorkin’s stage adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird is one of quiet confusion. “Something didn’t make sense,” Scout Finch tells the audience of the tale that’s about to unfold. Sorkin’s dramatization of Harper Lee’s novel, which opened on Broadway last December, is an unexpectedly probing work that refuses to let an American classic go unchallenged. Instead it stages two trials: One is from the book, where Scout’s attorney father Atticus Finch defends Tom Robinson, an African American man accused of rape in 1930s Alabama, and tries to combat the community’s entrenched racism.

In Sorkin’s play, the other trial is of Atticus’s own nobility, and how it doesn’t always square with his grander vision of justice. Though the adaptation broadly follows the narrative arc of Lee’s novel, it uses Scout, her brother Jem, and her friend Dill (all played by adult actors) to cast a wary eye over some of the book’s more idealistic details. That framing encourages the audience to ponder the limits of Atticus’s impulse to empathize even with vile racists like Bob Ewell, a man who’s trying to pin his own assault of his daughter Mayella on Tom. The play beefs up the relatively anonymous parts given to black characters in Lee’s work, gives Atticus’s kids a more argumentative nature, and sheds harsher light on the book’s somewhat pat ending.

The stage adaptation is nonetheless made with appreciation for Lee’s novel, and that mix of homage and update has translated into a family-friendly Broadway hit. The production, directed by Bartlett Sher, premiered last year with Jeff Daniels headlining a seasoned cast and has now turned over with Ed Harris in the lead role. I was fascinated by the prospect of Harris, who brings an edge to even his most warm-hearted roles, playing one of the most heralded characters in the American literary canon, and he didn’t disappoint. There’s a sweetness and a sadness to his Atticus, a perfect match to the melancholy backward glance of Sorkin’s text. I talked to Harris and Sorkin together about their approach to the revival, Atticus’s status as a hero, and recasting the classics for a modern audience. This conversation has been edited.

David Sims: The show surprised me. I knew the book, and I had seen the film multiple times, so I was not expecting to be surprised.

Aaron Sorkin: I’m glad to hear that. From the moment the curtain goes up, we try to knock you off your pins a little bit. Scout spends the play trying to solve [the mystery of Bob Ewell’s death], but broadly what we’re doing is having a new conversation about the book, the story we all learned in seventh grade and thought we knew.

Sims: The industrial warehouse look of the set—it’s like a space that’s been there for a long time but has been standing empty.

Sorkin: That’s right. The curtain goes up and it’s not what you were expecting to see. And what the three characters—Scout, Jem, and Dill, are questioning is something from the book.

Sims: The ending, specifically. But also the entire tale.

Sorkin: When I started out [with this play], I thought it was a suicide mission, but I said yes right away cause I wanted to do a play so badly. My first draft was terrible because I tried to gently swaddle the book in bubble wrap and transfer it to the stage. It felt like a greatest-hits album done by a cover band, just somebody trying to imitate Harper Lee and standing up the most famous scenes from the book. I realized that Atticus, as the protagonist [of the stage version of the] story, has to change. And if he’s gonna be the protagonist he has to have a flaw.

How did Harper Lee get away with having a protagonist who doesn’t change? Because Atticus isn’t the protagonist in the book or the movie, Scout is—her flaw is that she’s young, and the change is that she loses some of her innocence. While I wanted to explore Scout, I absolutely wanted Atticus to be a traditional protagonist, so he needed to change and have a flaw … It turned out that Harper Lee had [already] given him one, it’s just that when we all learned the book it was taught as a virtue. It’s that Atticus believes that goodness can be found in everyone.

Sims: He excuses things [like bigotry and cruelty].

Sorkin: By the end of the play, he realizes he doesn’t know his friends and neighbors as well as he thought he did. That it may not be true that goodness can be found in everyone.

Sims: Ed, how did you get involved with the show?

Sorkin: How do you win the lottery!

Ed Harris: I was in San Francisco. I woke up in a hotel in the morning and I had an email from [the producer Scott Rudin] asking, “Do you want to play Atticus.” Period. How could I say no?

Sims: Aside from the thrill of playing Atticus, was there also the appeal of doing a big Broadway show again?

Harris: I knew Jeff [Daniels] had been doing it, but I hadn’t seen it—I’m glad I hadn’t and didn’t want to, just not to be influenced. I didn’t know what to expect in terms of whether they’d just paste us into a thing that already had its wheels turning. And it was very encouraging during rehearsal that [the director Bartlett Sher] realized this was a new cast. Yes, the play has been running for a year; yes, there are certain things you have to retain in terms of blocking. But within the themes and relationships, he was very open to us exploring stuff.

Sorkin: What Ed is describing is a big deal. To have four weeks of rehearsal, essentially just do the play all over again with a new group of people, is something you don’t find a lot. What happened on my end was, Scott called and said, “We have a chance to get Ed Harris.” So I talked to Bart about it. It’s a whole new cast, with someone like Ed Harris, you can’t just have the stage manager show them their blocking. So we started from the beginning. The result is even more thrilling because the quality hasn’t diminished at all. In fact, both Bart and I make a strong argument that the play has gotten better as a result of rehearsing it again.

Sims: For playing Atticus, how long had it been since you’d thought about the novel or Gregory Peck’s performance in the film?

Harris: I love the film. I think Peck’s portrayal in terms of that story and that script is just indelible. There are little things that happen on the stage even now, just a head move or something, that feels like Gregory Peck! But the inner life of this man I’m playing is so different [than Peck’s character]. He’s trying to hold onto a belief that’s being eroded slowly but surely. It’s really interesting to play. I’m not one of those people who finds a way to do it and is gonna do that same thing for six months. It’s always new. I try to stay open to allowing it to affect me every night.

Sims: The show is interrogating Atticus’s passivity and his nobility. How do you want to communicate that passivity, and the anger within him, as well?

Harris: Early on in the play, Bob Ewell comes by [to the Finch house] and threatens Atticus, saying “We’ve got two ropes.” And Jem, Atticus’s son, comes out and says, “You want me to respect Bob Ewell?” And he says, “Yeah, there’s good in everyone.” That statement in itself does not betray who Atticus is and how he behaves. The first clue [of Atticus’s inner anger] to me, at least, is when Atticus goes off on Mayella [in the courthouse].

Sims: That’s a fascinating scene, where Atticus yells at Mayella Ewell for falsely accusing Tom Robinson and refusing to admit the truth under oath. His frustration is very understandable; as Atticus acknowledges, she’s a victim who’s obviously suffering, but when she rejects his empathetic gesture, he loses his cool slightly. Aaron, did you want that moment to be played that frighteningly?

Sorkin: This may be weird for Ed to hear, but when I’m writing, I’m playing all the parts. I’m very physical; I’m up, I’m down, I’m talking to myself. It was easy for me to get angry at that moment and to write the line, “I want to make the truth known to this court, if I have to go through you to do it.” There’s a great tension there—we’re in the time of MeToo, and we’re doing a play about a woman falsely accusing a man of rape. And Mayella is a victim, and she does deserve pity. But Tom Robinson doesn’t have a choice, and Mayella does.

Sims: You give a lot of that anger to the kids. In the novel, I don’t remember them ever challenging their father; they’re more like observers who are invested in childish obsessions like [their mysterious neighbor] Boo Radley. But you’ve given them, especially Jem, a more defiant dynamic with Atticus.

Sorkin: Well, if Atticus is going to have all the answers, let’s ask him tougher questions.

Sims: Calpurnia [the Finch family’s black housekeeper] has more to do as well, and she’s a much more passive figure in the book.

Sorkin: I returned to the book and was surprised to find that in a story about racial tension, there were really only two significant African American characters, neither of whom had much to say. I want to be careful—this play is in no way meant to correct what I feel were mistakes that Harper Lee made. It’s a conversation. And I couldn’t do a Harper Lee impersonation or pretend like I was writing the play in 1960. But Calpurnia in the book is mostly concerned with whether Scout’s going to wear overalls or a dress; Tom Robinson pleads for his life, but we don’t know much more about him. In 1960, using African American characters mostly as atmosphere is something that probably would have gone unnoticed by a mostly white audience. But it would be noticeable today, and it’s a really big missed opportunity. You want their point of view in this.

Harris: One of my favorite things that Aaron did is the tension between Atticus and Calpurnia. And the reason for that tension is that when Atticus tells her he’s going to defend Tom Robinson, she isn’t “grateful” enough, and he says “you’re welcome” under his breath. And she calls him on it! That scene really resonates for me, because it says so much about Atticus, and his real motivations.

Sorkin: There’s a scene in the book and in the movie. For a lot of people it’s their favorite scene, it had always been mine. My father passed away a few years ago, it was his favorite, too. At the end of the trial, Atticus has lost, he’s putting stuff back in his briefcase, and the whole courtroom has cleared out, except for what they call the “colored section” up in the balcony. Atticus turns around to see that they’re all standing silently out of respect for him, and Calpurnia says [to Scout], “Stand up, Miss Jean Louise, your daddy’s passing.” It’s a good movie scene.

Sims: Of course, it gives you a chill.

Sorkin: But the people in the balcony should be burning the courthouse down. They should be out in the street chanting, “No justice, no peace.” Instead they are [written as] docile, they are quietly respecting the guy who I most identify with in the story, the guy who seems like my father, the white liberal guy. We all want to be identified as one of the good ones, and that’s what they’re saying to Atticus. And I do think Atticus is one of the good ones—it’s just a little harder than that, and it’s where Calpurnia’s dynamic with him comes from in the play.

Sims: It’s an ongoing conversation in 2019—what the limits of empathy should be.

Sorkin: And I’m not sure that there’s an answer to that, but I know those questions are being asked very loudly, because of the monumental election we had three years ago and the one we’ll have 11 months from now.

Sims: Ed, are these things you’re thinking about, or are you more trying to inhabit the person?

Harris: I’m just trying to live it more and more every night. I’m trying to fill up this character with humanity.

Sims: Have either of you seen the recent Broadway revival of Oklahoma? I bring it up because that’s a musical that ends with a crime being covered up—the death of Jud—and a miscarriage of justice, and then the ensemble sings a song and everything’s happy. But this revival tries to interrogate that [ugliness] a little more. And then I had forgotten that To Kill a Mockingbird also ends with a crime—the [murder] of Bob Ewell [by Boo Radley, trying to protect Scout]—being covered up!

Sorkin: Isn’t it amazing? I had forgotten about it, too, and I couldn’t believe it!

Sims: It’s a story about the greatest lawyer of all time—Atticus—and he’s complicit in this crime!

Sorkin: This novel ends with, as Scout said, “The most honest and decent person in Maycomb” covering up murder with a judge and a sheriff. Why didn’t that ever come up in my eighth-grade class? I saw that and thought, well, I can tell this exact same story, but can’t that [tension] be part of it from the beginning? But that even raises new questions that people have talked to me about—that Boo Radley gets a different kind of justice than Tom Robinson gets. Never are the judge and the sheriff saying, “We gotta get Tom out of here!” [for his protection].

Sims: And there’s infinite understanding for Boo.

Sorkin: Right. Now I have a defense for that, which is that Atticus and the judge, when they arrange for Tom Robinson to have a jury trial, sincerely believe that it’s going to be a good thing for Maycomb, that justice is going to be done. They do not anticipate [Tom being found guilty]. Atticus’s mantra is “there is nobody in this town so far gone that they would send an obviously innocent person to the electric chair.” And they do.

Sims: There’s mob justice at work—Bob Ewell is disgraced, and Atticus successfully proves the way [Bob is] treating his daughter, but the town’s reaction is just to excommunicate [Bob], not to make the leap forward of finding Tom innocent. It’s been an interesting year for these great American works getting interrogated on Broadway.

Sorkin: They’re not getting repainted. We’re just taking another look, given the times we’re living in.

#ed harris #aaron sorkin #misc.#interview #to kill a mockingbird #theater #broadway #q

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shushrick · 6 years

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hey hey, kids ! it’s daisy again ! now i usually make a point to not use talking gifs as my headers for intros,, but he’s getting so heated over trump in this one i?? couldn’t?? not?? man went on a full rant and he’s not even american he is the only man i stan.

･:*:･ﾟ☆ ( roger waters. seventy-three. male. he/him ) ↷ ( richard harris ) has been spotted by the paparazzi in los angeles. they are a ( c ) list celebrity known for their career as a ( soloist / ex-lead vocalist/bassist of warren pieces ). they’re known by their fans to be ( passionate, open-minded & charismatic ) but the tabloids frequently portray them to be ( egotistical, dictatorial & pessimistic ) . i wish them every success in the entertainment industry. [roger waters/pink floyd vc] (daisy. 19. est. she/her) ･:*:･ﾟ☆

BACKSTORY / PROFESSIONAL LIFE

triggers: brief mention of war, brief mention of abuse, death, alcohol/drugs, suicide

so this here is rick and he’s got a long life story ! 73yrs worth ! so let’s get started!

rick grew up largely without a father, as his father, previously a sworn pacifist, died five months after he was born fighting in normandy landings

rick’s mother became somewhat of a smother, finding him to be the closest person she had left to her husband. he was put under strict rules, his mother always insisting it was for the best, warning him that the world was cruel and it was far too easy to get hurt out there !

so he spent his free time researching the war his father died in, reading the letters his father wrote, and trying to become the man his mother wanted him to be – his father.

he learned his father loved jazz music via one of the letters he wrote. furthermore, he learned his father had played the stand-up bass. wanting to become a small version of his father, of course he spoke to his mother about this! she refused to let rick use his father’s bass, instead getting him a cheap electric one, saying it was cheaper and more convenient

he met a kid, keith, who would ultimately change his life when he was thirteen years old. keith was a guitar aficionado and they bonded over music and shared experiences with wwii and lost fathers. where rick lost his to death, keith lost his to ‘shell shock’.

they entered secondary school together and faced the abuse of teachers who didn’t care much for corporal punishment rules. however, they met two other kids – one, john, who worked great with pianos and another, pete, who was excellent at playing the drums – and formed a band. together, they settled on ‘warren pieces’, figuring it was a nice play on ‘war and peace’, especially during such a tumultuous time.

they put out their first album in the late 60s, 'the piper at the gates of dawn’, with keith taking the lead. from those fond of psychedelics, it received rave reviews, and they didn’t care much for any other reviews. keith kept the morale up. the year after, they released ‘a saucerful of secrets’ with the same reception as their previous one.

although rick was an independent man by then, whenever he saw his mother, she would constantly tell him everything that was wrong with his music. it was too drug-addled! she knew that boy keith had never been anything but trouble! he needed to quit warren pieces before he became a druggie and stopped cutting his hair!

he put up with her constant criticisms, but the day she told him his father would be ashamed, he cut her out of his life completely. he never visited her. he made sure she was never able to buy tickets to his shows. he didn’t tell her his home phone when he bought an apartment. for everything he’d done to make her proud...

rick took solace in his band, primarily in keith (but five feet apart cause they’re not gay), and was horrified when keith fell prey to the enemy of all psychedelic-era musicians. when it became more than a habit, rick brought in a man he’d met in university, robert, to become a secondary guitarist. they told keith he was just there to tour, but he was actually being used as insurance.

keith began purposefully putting his guitar out of tune during shows. he’d purposefully play the wrong chords. he’d purposefully start a different song from everyone else. he also became volatile and borderline delusional. he could be violent with fans. he could tell interviewers that he believed someone was watching warren pieces at all times, thus making him feel like he had to make everything perfect. then he would laugh, but not that comfortable laugh. keith shaved his eyebrows off and drew new, comical ones on.

it all ended when keith came to rick with an idea for a new song, tentatively titled “have you got it yet?” he’d play the chords for rick to follow and practice along with, then he’d switch them up. it kept up like that for some time until, yes, rick got it and finally did what he knew would pain him: he finally kicked keith out of the band, replacing him with robert.

the years of ‘atom heart mother’, ‘meddle’, and ‘obscured by clouds’ were silent ones. the band didn’t talk much except suggesting this chord here and there or put this word where that one is instead – all of that.

however, when news came out that keith had overdosed – although he’d lived – they began talking more, finding more inspiration in shared experiences again. they created ‘the dark side of the moon’ from that, an amalgam of political critiques, anti-bourgeoisie anthems, and songs dedicated to the man they figuratively lost.

while they were recording a new song for an album with a concept they’d yet to come up with, keith visited the recording studio. he was completely hairless – bald, no eyebrows. his under-eyes were pink. he’d gained weight. he looked much emptier than he had when he left. he didn’t have anything comical drawn on. he was just... sad.

it broke everyone’s heart, especially rick’s. they all had different, silent reactions. nonetheless, they were all haunted.

after that, it only seemed right to make the album largely dedicated to keith. ‘wish you were here’ came out two weeks too late, as keith killed himself two weeks prior to its release.

the next album was purposefully impersonal, focusing on the politics of the time instead of on family, on keith, on love (not that they had many love songs). the entire album was tearing down everyone from just the general population of policemen to the more specific mary whitehouse. although each album of theirs after keith left had an element of acknowledging the corruption within the system, ‘animals’ didn’t have a single song that didn’t.

now branded as particularly political, rick decided to focus in on past politics and on what haunted him the most. ‘the wall’ was born, and so was a much more dictatorial rick.

due to it being so personal, he took every measure possible to make it perfect. he fired john from the project for a few days, noting how his cocaine addiction was affecting the music... which it wasn’t, really... after the temp pianist played on one (1) song, he brought john back to the project.

he didn’t take any suggestions robert threw his way, deeming them all ill-fitting, even when they actually would’ve fit perfectly. he forced everyone to pull multiple all-nighters in a row, making them play take after take. pete quit for a hot second before realizing he had nowhere else to go and returning to the project.

‘the wall’ was an unpleasant experience for everyone. although the concept was likely the most cohesive of all of them, following a single character (warren) and timeline throughout, working on it was absolutely horrible. for the three other members, it was being under a heavy fist. for rick, it was not only digging so deep into himself, but also subconsciously digging deep into those around him. there was a line tossed in dedicated to john that he hardly even realized ( “got a grand piano to prop up my mortal remains” - nobody home ).

a movie was made from it. it did great among the psychedelic audience. rick realized the main character was closer to keith than it was to himself.

‘the final cut’ was the last album he made with warren pieces for a long time. he considered it the b-side to ‘the wall’, but better. it was similar in concept, and there were some that were outtakes from ‘the wall’, but it was less focused on a storyline and more focused on rick’s own feelings of loss, dealing with them so many years later than he should have. it could almost have been a solo album, which leads...

after ‘the final cut’, richard went solo for some time. he found he had too many “artistic differences” from the other members of his band and only bought the two albums they put out without him because he wanted to support john whom he was still fairly close to.

they left on such horrible terms that he didn’t reunite with them until 2013 (granted, after ‘94 they were all out doing their own things) when they were in the middle of recording ‘the endless river’. given that the grand majority of the album was simply re-recording demos, he offered to help with some of the songs. most of them already had whatever work they needed from him on there from a long, long time ago, but they began talking again, anyway.

the driving force behind them being civil was ultimately john’s untimely demise. much of the album was simply compromised of old recording of john with robert layering some light guitar over it, the occasional percussion and bass also being present.

his solo career was very c-list. his tours grossed well due to the amount of warren pieces songs he played, but only diehard fans actually bought his solo albums. it seemed everyone was either team robert or team richard.

he’s become more civil with robert and pete since john’s death and still occasionally talks to them, but doesn’t make a habit of it. most interviewers have given up on asking him if there’ll ever be a warren pieces reunion – he’s made it pretty clear that, if there is, he likely won’t be part of it.

ETC. / PERSONAL LIFE TIDBITS

rick has been married three times.

the first time was to a woman named anya whom he met at woodstock and it lasted for five months – much longer than his bandmates bet it would. john bet four months, keith bet two, pete bet one. he was twenty-six at the time and blames the fickle nature on that.

he married again when he was thirty-two. it was a horrible one, though – not that he saw that at the time. he wound up having affair after affair as the “groupies threw themselves at [him]!” she was, understandably, cold to him after. rick was susceptible to breaking down while alone. she stopped answering his calls. they divorced when he was thirty-four and he included details of it in ‘the wall’, making sure his character seemed more like the villain than hers. he knew that he was responsible for it all.

his third marriage was when he was fifty-one. it lasted for five years, being the longest relationship in general that he’d ever had. truth be told, however, he never really felt anything for her. he’d felt a lot for his second wife, but he’d more than screwed that up. now that he was past the time of screwing things up, he realized the difference between love and lust. he didn’t love her. she had an affair and he figured that was reason enough to divorce without creating a story about his villainy, although a few stories were created about his hypocrisy, citing his second marriage.

rick has never once claimed that the beatles were a source of inspiration for him and will make that known if someone tries to bring it up. although he admires their work, no member ever said that they were inspired by the band. it was a cliché.

although he’s still considered an english native, he’s very into politics from all around the world. his most recent tour’s main theatrics centered around anti-trump messages. ask him about the politics of any country, though – he’ll give you his very informed opinion.

created a memorial for those who died in normandy landings and named it after his father.

reconnected with his mother after he’d had the chance to really sort through his feelings about her – after the release of ‘the final cut’. he’s grateful he did before she died... seeing as she died one year after they reconnected. rip.

is in the rock ‘n’ roll hall of fame. what a cool guy.

there’s probs more that i’m missing but he’s?? a new character?? who 110% isn’t based on anyone at all just very original like my mind!! so original!! that said

LIKE THIS OR HMU IF YOU’D LIKE TO PLOT !

#fames.intro #''he is SO DUMB'' i stan one (1) man #i might pass tf out soon bc it's almost 5am here but!! thought i'd go ahead and post this so it could. be out there.#it's a novella y'all.

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sirpoley · 6 years

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On Towns in RPGs, Part 5: Building a Playable City

In the first article in this series, I embarked on an ill-defined quest to figure out what, if anything, a town map is actually for in tabletop play.

In the second, I took a look at the common metaphor comparing towns to dungeons—unfavourably.

In the third, I proposed an alternate metaphor: that cities are more like forests than dungeons.

In the fourth, I looked at how forests are used in D&D to see what we could use when thinking about cities.

Now, we're going to get to the nuts and bolts of designing cities for use in D&D.

Think In Terms of Districts, not Distance

No player is ever going to remember, or care about, the actual distance between their current location and the tavern they're trying to get to. Similarly, they won't remember, or care about, the roads they have to cross to get there.

The absolute most you can hope for is that they'll remember and care about some of (but not all of) the neighbourhoods they have to go through. In Terry Pratchet's Ankh-Morpork, the Shades is an extremely memorable and dangerous area. Like Pratchett's characters, players are going to avoid it wherever possible and yet always find that they have to go through it. Planescape: Torment's Hive and Fallout: New Vegas's Freeside have similar qualities. If you grimly tell the players: "the quickest way to the princess is through—oh, dear—the Shades," they'll have a reaction to it.

Don't overdo it with districts; keep the number small enough for them to be memorable. I'd recommend seven as an absolute maximum, but as few as three is perfectly acceptable. Lantzberg, from City of Eternal Rain, only used three (one each for lower, middle, and upper class—end elevation). A district can be as big as you like; feel free to simply scale them up for larger cities.

Forget Thee Not House Hufflepuff

It's no secret that in JK Rowling's Harry Potter series, only two of the four houses matter at all. If you're not Gryffindor or Slytherin, you're lucky to get any screentime at all. However, if they were simply cut from the series, then Hogwarts would feel terribly small, as if it were built solely for Harry to gallivant around in, and not part of a living, breathing world. Your city can't just have people to tell your players who to kill and people to be killed, it needs someone to clean up the mess after, also. From a narrative standpoint, these people don't matter, and will rarely be mentioned, but they can be used to pad your world out. When dividing up your map into districts, include a few that, as far as you're concerned, will never see an adventure, and give it maybe one or two notable characteristics. These are areas that are primarily residential, or involve industries not relevant to adventure (i.e., anyone other than an alchemist, blacksmith, or arcane university). Feel free to leave these places utterly devoid of points of interest.

In the adventure written for Lantzberg, for instance, there's little to no reason to ever visit the castle at the peak of the hill. It's there for verisimilitude (someone has to be in charge) and for the GM to hook later adventures to (which I'll elaborate on in my next point), but mainly it's just there to make the city seem larger. Similarly, most of the buildings in Castleview are manors of rich and important citizens, each one of which might have any number of use for a band of adventurers, but only a handful are actually fleshed out. After all, it would hardly feel like a living, breathing city if every single building was tied into a single adventure, would it?

Gaming is full of Hufflepuff Houses: the 996 Space Marine chapters that aren't lucky enough to be Ultramarines, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, or Space Wolves; D&D fiends that are neither lawful nor chaotic, Morrowind's Houses Dres and Indoril, and any of Homeworld's Kushan other than Kiith S'jet. This isn't laziness; they're there for a reason: they make the world feel larger.

Leave Room to Grow

Try to design a city large enough, and versatile enough, that once the current quest is wrapped up, you can inject some more content into it without serious retconning. This is part of where your Hufflepuff-tier-neighbourhoods come in—maybe one of them has been under the heel of a violent gang the whole time, but the party never found out because they never went there. Once the players have started to clear out your adventure ideas and points of interest, there's still plenty of room to pump some more in without the city bursting like an over-inflated balloon.

The map I posted earlier probably represents the upper limit of how detailed you should make your city. A GM could run a few more adventures out of Lantzberg, but a long-running campaign would probably benefit from a bit more room to breathe.

A Few Key Details

What are the kinds of things a DM really needs to know about a city? D&D3.5 had little statblocks for cities and settlements that broke down the demographics of different areas, but that's probably more granular than is actually necessary. Remember—every bit of detail that you include has the potential to distract the GM from finding the fact they actually need. It isn't for instance, particularly important to know that 12.5% of a neighbourhood's population are halflings while 54% are elves, but it might be useful to know that a neighbourhood has a notably large elf population and an often-overlooked halfling minority.

Who are the Watchmen that the Watchers Watch?

One infamously common thing that comes up in D&D is the city watch. It's shadow looms large over every action the party, and your villains, will take, so it's worth thinking about them a little bit. Its best to err on the side of making them too weak rather than too strong, as a powerful, well-organized law enforcement group can really put a damper on the opportunities for adventure. The counter-argument is that if the city watch isn't strong enough to threaten the party, then the party effectively has the run of the city; my preferred answer to this problem is to give the local lord a powerful knight or champion who can be used as a beat-stick against major threats to law and order (like the PCs) if need be, but can plausibly be busy enough with other problems to leave some for the party to handle.

When deciding who the local authorities are, almost anything you can come up with is more interesting (and historically plausible) than a centralized, professional police force. Here's a few examples:

A militia organized by local guilds

A local gang that provides protection in exchange for money and doesn't want outsiders muscling in on their turf

A semi-legitimate religious militant order

A mercenary group funded by a coalition of wealthy merchants (who just so happen to overlook their own crimes and corruption)

Don't get too bogged down in their stats; just pick a low-level NPC from the back of the Monster Manual and write down who they work for. Different neighbourhoods can share the same organization, but try to prevent a single organization from policing the entire city.

By breaking up law enforcement by district, you also prevent the entire city dogpiling on the party when they break a law, like you see in video games. If the party robs a house in the Ironworker's District, they can lay low in the Lists, where the Ironworkers' Patrol has no jurisdiction, until the heat dies down.

Points of Interest!

All those numbers you see scattered over D&D cities? Now's the time to add them. Each one should correspond to a description in a document somewhere. These descriptions can be as long or as short as you wish. For example, on the short end, #1 from Lantzberg just has this to say:

However, and I won't get into too much detail for fear of spoilers, some of those numbers are elaborate, multi-page dungeons.

While you should endeavour to keep the number of districts low, there is no ceiling to how many points of interest you should put into the city. Don't burn yourself out. If you can come up with six, put in six. If you can come up with fifty, put in fifty.

A point of interest can be anything from a scenic overlook to a toll bridge to an elaborate sewer system packed with kobolds and giant rats and treasure. They can be as fleshed out or as minimal as you are comfortable with. There's a sweet spot that varies from GM to GM, as if you include too much detail you suffer from information overload as the party approaches the point of interest (sixteen pages of description, for instance, for a single shop is less than helpful), while too little information might lead to you having to do too much on the fly. I like maybe one to three sentences per point of interest, or per room in a point of interest if it is important enough to warrant its own map (I typically only map dungeons).

Random Encounters

I'll write a series on handling random encounters later, but for now, breaking up encounters by district is a convenient way to do it. More dangerous districts, for instance, might have muggers or even monsters that attack (especially at night). If you're going to use random encounters in your campaign, creating a table for each district lets you use your local colour to affect actual game mechanics. Castleview, for instance, is very safe due to constant patrols by the Lady-Mayor's Watch, while the flooded Lists are full of man-eating fungi, ghouls, criminals, and who knows what. This lets you follow the age-old advice to "show, don't tell." You don't have to say "this area is full of crime," you can show the players this by throwing some criminals at them.

This post has already gone on way longer than intended. Next time, we'll use what we've learned to answer the original question and make better town maps.

#D&D #RPGs #D&D5e #OnTownsinRPGs

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