But Daddy I'm In Collaboration With Him

Harry Styles is Cool Now?

Before we really get into this essay, I need to clarify something and offer some context on how we both found ourselves here. On the 16th of October 2019, I took the first of six seminars under the title Fans & Amateur-Experts, taught by artist Owen G. Parry. Before these seminars, fan art had been a huge part of my practice. I'd spent the whole summer of 2019 devoting my artistic practice to YouTubers Dan and Phil, and December of 2018 saw me fumbling around, trying to pass off my Emmerdale fan art as real art, but not really knowing how. It wasn't until I saw another artist trying to bridge the gap between fan art and fine art and offering me lots of academic texts on the subject, that I finally felt my work was worth making.

On the 25th of November 2019 I was introduced, by my collaborator Tom, to a song called Two Ghosts. He played me the song, describing it as a perfect summary of our shared practice with references to tattoos, hearts, and domesticity, then asked me to guess who was singing it. I was shocked to find out it was Harry Styles. Harry Styles is cool now? A month later, I found myself with very little to do over Christmas and had listened to both of Harry's solo albums too many times, this is when I first properly got into Larry Stylinson and started shipping it HARD. I need to specify this for two reasons: firstly, so that I don't get attacked by Larries (those who ship Louis and Harry together) and secondly for context. It doesn't feel too outlandish to suggest that all shipping is to some extent a reflection of the shipper's desires. I am queer, so the idea of Louis and Harry being conventionally gay for each other is a nice idea to me, but that isn't a relationship that I want for myself or that I've ever experienced. As an aromantic person, it's taken me a long time to realise that I'm still capable of feeling intense love for another person, and before I realised I was aromantic, it took me a long time to realise that these intense feelings of love weren't romantic and didn't need to be expressed sexually. No one has ever told me that non-romantic love could be as intense and valuable as romantic love, I had to learn that on my own, and maybe Louis and Harry had to as well.

I would request that you read this essay less as an essay and more as a fan fiction. I will present you with evidence and arguments, but I also understand that I am mostly projecting my desires onto these two men, just like everyone else trying to prove the validity or invalidity of Larry. This essay is not intended to be a criticism of Larries or antis, I don't think I'm a Larrie anymore but I'm certainly not an anti either. Every proof video makes me less sure of their romantic and sexual relations, yet more sure of their unlabelable love. This essay will reference and unpack some popular Larry theories but maybe isn't even about Larry, it's perhaps more about Queer Domesticity, collaboration, and non-conventional expressions of love.

John Green, despite being part of one of my favourite non-romantic collaborative duos, is best known for his mildly cliched teen romance novels. A few weeks ago, I finally got round to reading his most recent book and was obsessed with the following quote: "It's a weird phrase in English, in love, like it's a sea you drown in or a town you live in. You don't get to be in anything else—in friendship or in anger or in hope. All you can be in is love." (Green, 2017). For a while I've wanted to write an essay about the intersections between fan art and collaboration, I'm yet to decide if I will ever write that essay or if I'm actually writing it right now. This essay that you're currently reading is perhaps more about my relationships with my collaborators, rather than about the logistics of our collaborative practices (if it is even possible to differentiate the two). What I love about this quote is that I simultaneously relate to it and strongly disagree with it. Whenever I read or hear or see anything that glorifies romantic love these days, I think about my collaborators. Collaboration feels like the closest I ever have or ever will be to that incredible, all-consuming feeling described in all the love songs, but I'm not in love, I'm in collaboration.