Oh no, I have feelings about (one of) the direction children

[rsadelle]

Sooooo after literal years of avoiding One Direction fandom, I was in the d/s tag on AO3 looking for something to read and thought about a One Direction story, "I might as well click on this since I've read most of the rest of the highly-kudosed things in this tag and I'm really not reading some of the other fandoms I haven't read yet," and then I liked it, so I read a bunch of One Direction kinkfic, and then I was reading at work so I read some work-safe fic. I found it in some ways restful to read fic in a fandom I know nothing about because I don't really know or care if it's out of character. Then after reading a lot of it, I thought, "this Louis guy seems like kind of a jerk," and when I asked on Twitter, the response was that he is kind of a jerk, so then I was reading things not the main pairing and somehow ended up reading Nick Grimshaw/Harry Styles fic, and now I care deeply about them and the Twitter consensus seems to be that Harry is actually an adorable fluffy bunny. (For obvious reasons, I'm pretty wary right now of liking anything that involves men.) Anyway, if you are like I was at the beginning and know nothing: Nick Grimshaw is an openly gay celebrity/DJ/radio show show host for BBC Radio 1, Harry Styles is a fluffy-haired member of One Direction who now has a solo album and an acting credit, and they became such close friends in 2012ish that people other than fandom actually thought they were/might be dating.

Some great things about this fandom:

• There's a lot of fic. A LOT.


• In one of their on the radio conversations, Nick says that when he got promoted to the Breakfast show, the big boss told him he couldn't tell anyone, so he only told four people: his parents, his friend Aimee (I've gathered from fic that she's his BFF), and Harry.


• This adorable interview with Harry exists. It's adorable! He seems sensible and thoughtful in a way I like. And also he talks about how great teenage girls are as fans: "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."


• They seem generally nice to each other in fic, and while they do joke around and banter some in their radio stuff, they also seem to genuinely like each other in real life.


• When Nick had a nighttime show, Harry would just hang around at the studio a lot. This has at least two different actual on the radio references.


• I have all the feelings about this gifset of Harry just casually chatting with people while holding a baby.


• There's a radio interview where Nick and Harry talk about watching The Notebook together as it gradually got dark and then suddenly they were watching The Notebook together by candlelight.

Some not great things about this fandom:

• A lot of the canon is comprised of (a) paparazzi shots and (b) tweets from random people who have spotted them out and about, which I got skeeved out about when I found an actual timeline/primer.


• I have read a lot of fic, and it all kinds of blends together after a while. (Which is not stopping me from reading more, although I think I've read all of the good work-safe stuff unless I go back to reading other One Direction pairings.)


• Harry was in a band that sang one of the most catchy awful messages for young women in recent years ("You don't know you're beautiful / That's what makes you beautiful" - blech).


• Harry has terrible tattoos and loves The Notebook (fandom has a type). Worse, he keeps talking about The Notebook when people ask him about romantic comedies, which makes me think he doesn't understand what a romantic comedy is.


• This is a very large fandom with a lot of tinhats. I'm not sure I want to get involved in that.