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mcarfield · 6 years

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Harry Styles and the OTP

HI SO IDK HOW THIS WORKS BUT ahaha @earlgreytea68 literally submitted this masterpiece to me, and i wish i could say i knew how we got here but in truth i do not, we were just talking about how Andrew Garfield runs in this hilariously nerdy Brit Pack (of RPatz, Eddie R, Jamie Dornan, and Tom Sturridge), and she was like, “This checks out and also Harry Styles should be a scotch-drinking sexual guru sage master” and then she just handed me this GLORIOUS THING and I mean………

THANK YOU, EGT, NONE OF US ARE WORTHY OF THIS AND I HAVE TO HIT POST AND GO DIE OF HILARITY BYE

“Oh, no,” says Rob, and shakes his head violently. “That is not good.”

“What?” Andrew says. “Why isn’t that good?”

“You got invited to Harry Styles’s house,” Eddie says, and purses his lips like that’s enough for Andrew to know.

Except Andrew already knew that. “Ye-es,” says Andrew. “Why is that a bad thing?”

“Do you know what Harry Styles does?” Eddie asks him.

“Yes?” says Andrew. “I mean. He’s, you know, a musician. One Direction. That’s what makes you beautiful,” he sang.

Eddie and Rob stare at him.

Rob says, “Christ, do not do that when you go to Harry Styles’s house.”

Eddie says, “He’s not in One Direction anymore.”

Andrew scowls. “I know that. Look, what is with you two? I just got invited to hang out at someone’s house. I’m sure it’ll be some kind of low-key evening. We’ll chat about avoiding paparazzi together or something.”

“You really don’t know what Harry Styles does,” Eddie says sadly.

“Well, I sure do wish one of my best friends here would tell me,” says Andrew impatiently.

“He gives love advice,” Eddie says.

“Love advice?” Andrew says blankly. “Like an advice columnist?”

“Yeah,” Rob says. “Harry Styles has an advice column.”

“Wow,” says Andrew.

“No,” Rob says. “Obviously Harry Styles doesn’t have an advice column. Harry Styles is a sexual sage.”

Andrew has no idea what that’s supposed to mean. “He’s a what?”

“He pulls you aside when he thinks you’re mucking up your love life,” Eddie says, “and he gives you advice.”

Andrew tries to process this. “What, he does this regularly?”

“Oh, yes,” says Rob. “And in great detail.”

Eddie winces. “Yeah, it’s really not necessary for him to go into such detail.”

“Yes, it is,” says Rob. “He’s got some tips that changed my life, I swear to God. Did you not listen to his tips, Eddie? You should have listened to his tips. Hannah would have thanked you. He told me to do this thing with my dick where I—”

“No,” Andrew and Eddie say simultaneously.

Rob makes a face but falls silent.

Andrew says, “So let me get this straight. Harry Styles is some secret sex sage who’s been taking people aside to fix their love lives?”

“Yes. And he’s coming straight for you, apparently,” says Eddie.

“Hmm.” Andrew mulls this over. “Do you think he’s going to have advice about Emma?” he asks brightly.

“I think he’s going to knock you upside the head,” says Rob.

***

Harry Styles’s house is exactly what Andrew would have expected the house of a sexual sage to look like, had he ever stopped to think about sexual sages existing in the world before. Every square inch of it is draped in impossibly lush and loudly patterned fabrics, from the cranberry velvet lining the walls to the zebra print fur sprawling on the floors to every rollicking chair in between. The curtains are black and crimson harlequin print, and they seem to be eight times longer than they need to be. All of the lamps are draped in fabric, so that the lights all around them are garishly colored. Harry is standing in a suit that seems to have been crafted entirely from a Turkish carpet. Andrew is envious of it, actually. Harry’s got a great stylist.

Andrew says, “I love what you’ve done with the place.”

Harry looks unamused. He sips from a tumbler that contains some indeterminate liquid and says, “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“Oh,” says Andrew. “I thought I had to come. I thought if I didn’t come you’d track me down and have me kidnapped so you could bring me here and save my love life.”

“I would have,” says Harry.

Andrew laughs.

Harry does not.

So Andrew stops laughing.

“Andrew Garfield,” Harry says, and reaches behind him. There’s a bookcase there that’s carpeted in lurid, hot pink tiger print. Harry pulls out a binder, except someone’s literally pasted fluffy white fur onto the binder. Andrew wonders idly if Harry can’t have any sharp surfaces around him.

And then Harry opens the binder and there’s a picture of…Andrew. A fairly old picture, actually.

“Hang on,” Andrew says. “Is that from Lions for Lambs?”

Harry ignores him, flipping through the binder. There are more pictures of Andrew, scattered through pages and pages of text. Harry glances through it, going hmm and huh at various places.

Andrew says, growing a little irritated, “What is all that?”

“Your blind items,” Harry replies without looking up.

“My blind items? Aren’t those blind?”

Harry looks up then, fixes him with a stare. “Blind items are never blind, to those with the sight.” Then Harry sips from his tumbler. Then he looks back down at the binder.

“Oh,” Andrew says, because he’s not sure what you can possibly say to that. “Okay, then. So you have the sight?”

Harry closes the binder and looks up at Andrew. “Your blind items are a fucking mess.”

Andrew bristles. “Well, I mean, they’re not that—”

“Andrew. Which of us has a house carpeted entirely in faux furs so soft, it had to be specially manufactured for me by Dior?”

Andrew looks around the house. “I think that’s you.”

“Exactly,” says Harry, and turns back to the bookcase.

“Is this about Emma?” Andrew asks.

Harry suddenly flings his tumbler entirely across the room, where it strikes harmlessly the heavily padded wall and lands on the soft carpet with a thud.

Harry says, “Pretend that shattered.”

“Okay,” Andrew says.

“The shattering of that glass is how you should feel about Emma.”

Andrew looks at the intact glass. “It didn’t shatter, though—”

“I said pretend it shattered!” Harry says.

“Okay,” Andrew agrees again.

“So, how do you feel about Emma?”

“…Shattered?” Andrew guesses.

“Yes. And what do we do with a shattered glass?”

“…Clean it up?”

“Wrong. We forget about it.”

Andrew considers. “That seems dangerous.”

Harry’s eyes glitter at him. “Oh, does it?”

“You could be walking around barefoot and forget you never cleaned up your shattered glass and then you’ve got glass in your foot—”

“You shouldn’t be walking around barefoot,” Harry says. “What the fuck. Why would you be walking around barefoot?”

“You never walk around barefoot in your house?”

“I’m not an animal,” Harry says. “Christ. You’re a disaster.”

“I’m not a disaster,” Andrew protests.

“The girl broke up with you, she’s making out with other costars, she’s chasing Justin Theroux around. You’re a little bit of a disaster here.”

“Okay,” Andrew allows. “When you put it that way.”

“Who the fuck is Justin Theroux anyway?” asks Harry.

“He’s in this show,” Andrew says. “The Leftovers? And he used to be married to—”

“Never mind,” Harry says. “I’ve lost interest.”

“Okay.”

“But the important thing is…I haven’t lost interest in you.” Harry points to Andrew. “You’re a fucking disaster, but I haven’t lost interest in you.”

“Thank you?” says Andrew.

“I wish I had my drink,” says Harry.

“You threw it,” says Andrew.

“I know,” says Harry. “I’m just saying. I wish I hadn’t done that. But I think it made an effective point.”

“Sure,” says Andrew. “So is this about helping me get over Emma?”

“Why do you still remember Emma’s name?”

“What?”

“We were supposed to forget about Emma, like the shattered glass.”

“But you were just talking about the glass—”

“You’re the one who needs to forget. Forget about Emma. It’s like she never happened.” Harry snaps his fingers in Andrew’s face.

Andrew wonders if Harry genuinely thinks he’s a sorcerer. Maybe no one’s told Harry he can’t erase people’s memories. Andrew’s certainly not going to be the one to break that news.

Harry says, “Okay, I’m going to solve your love life with one photograph.” Harry waves a manila envelope around. “Are you ready?”

Actually, Andrew is kind of desperately curious. “Yes,” he says.

Harry hands him the envelope, and Andrew opens it, and it’s a photograph of… “James,” Andrew says.

“Mmm,” Harry says.

Andrew looks at him. “This is James McArdle.”

“Yes.” Harry nods.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

Harry leans closer and drops his voice. “Shag him.”

“He’s—I mean—What?”

“Shag him,” Harry says.

“But…” Andrew looks back at the photograph. “This is James McArdle,” he says again.

“Shag him,” Harry says.

“I…” Andrew looks at Harry, who nods encouragingly at him, then looks back at James’s photograph in his hands. He narrows his eyes. He thinks.

Harry says, “Would you like some tips?”

Andrew tucks James’s photograph into his pocket and says, “Yes.”

#omg #mcarfield #mcarfield fic #sort of #earlgreytea68 #idek what is happening right now #BLIND ITEMS ARE NEVER BLIND TO THOSE WITH SIGHT #submission

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frank-en-ghoul · 6 years

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Mary Shelley (2018)

The sound of Mary’s pencil scratching up against paper and an almost inaudible whisper reciting what is written is how we are introduced to the titular character. This is a film I was anticipating as much as Hereditary, and as it so happened I was able to watch both of these in one day. I knew going into this that there would be some shortcuts in the story; most films are limited to being no more than two hours, which should have been enough for this biopic, but ‘Mary Shelley’ is only partially stitched up with the right pieces, and held back by a couple of loose stitches.

When the screen fades in from black, we see Mary, played by Elle Fanning, writing in her journal beside her mother’s grave. She is not the famous writer she is now known as quite yet, and from here the film takes us through her journey in life before writing Frankenstein; Or The Modern Prometheus. Only a few liberties were taken with the story, but for the most part the film presented a mostly accurate account of what happened, at least based on biographies that have been written, and I found that many of the scenarios I’d only read about before were beautifully executed; their beauty matched elegantly by the performances. Elle Fanning is marvelous as Mary, and brings fourth the right amount of emotion in all the right scenes. Her chemistry with Douglas Booth, who played Percy, was stupendous. I only wish that more time would have been spent on them getting to know each other, their instant infatuation happened a bit too quickly. I guess you can argue that instant connections develop rather quickly, and I might have just been expecting too much of the film. I also really enjoyed Tom Sturridge as Lord Byron, his quirky performance stole the show whenever he was on screen, and I’ve read that the kiss he gives to a specific character was actually unscripted!

Unfortunately, not every part of the film was handled with this much care. There are two integral events in it that were lacking, and even though they did not exactly ruin the film, I felt that they anchored it from being great. One of these events is the death of Mary’s first child; I know it’s hard to try and cram someone’s biography into two hours, but this key moment in Mary’s life was only touched on briefly, as if it was just something on a list that they had to sign off on. Of all the scenes in the film, I personally thought that this one deserved the most attention. Maybe the director didn’t wish to elaborate too much on such a depressing event, but again, it served as a big part of Mary’s life and would later serve as inspiration for her novel, so I was disappointed to see it handled the way it was.

I was also not fond of the creative choice they made with the sequence of her writing the book itself; they used flashbacks to try and demonstrate how everything in her life up until that point was crucial to her work, as if we had already forgotten what we witnessed in the last hour and a half. It fell flat, and I would have much preferred that scene without the flashbacks and without the exasperatingly cheesy musical track accompanying it. In short, then, there is much to be enjoyed in Mary Shelley, especially for those who have taken great inspiration from her like I have, but the film is very much like the monster that Victor Frankenstein created: lacking in a lot of areas, but filled with great potential.

#Mary Shelley #Elle Fanning

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