Times change, as times must do.

https://x.com/zaynalertz/status/1848162188705308870?s=46&t=HJNgJeyaKbaPu8DTunwOUA

Every morning I wake up and I still can’t believe he’s gone.

I really related to that part of Maya's story and felt very seen when I heard her talking about it. The tension between it being a genuine threat by a person who needs help and an emotionally abusive manipulation tactic is a nuance that I don't think is talked about enough.

And strangely, Liam's death has made me reflect on that period of my life more than anything else.

My honest to God first thought when I heard that he died (and how he died) was: "That's what these men do. That's what they always do." And I felt really guilty for thinking that way when someone's child, brother, father, friend, and significant other had passed away.

But. Sitting with that discomfort and reflecting on a part of my life that I've tried to avoid thinking about for so long has actually made me feel less confused and more compassionate.

Thinking of that ex-boyfriend now, I know he was in a lot of pain. But I was, too. And I can acknowledge the fact that he was really hurting (because yes, it is a fact) without excusing everything else.

People are more than one thing and now I'm able to look back with compassion and gratitude for the role he played in my life.

And to a lesser degree, I feel like I'm able to do that with Liam now, too.

I've really been struggling to decide where my opinion fits in all of this because most of the posts on my dash the last few days haven't resonated with me.

I'd been distancing myself from Liam in the past few weeks because it was all too familiar and I felt kind of resentful and disillusioned.

I didn't want to deny the pain he caused or normalize the type of behavior that was very hurtful and scary to my teenage self. But I also felt compassion for him as a person and thought the way his life ended was really, extremely sad.

It can be both/and instead of either/or.

No matter how mad the word made us, It always held hope — a “hiatus.”

i followed you on and off when i was in the thick of my 1d fandom. i often do not agree with you as i do not believe many things you do. (but one reason why i appreciate your perspective is that i do think you would endorse me having my own opinions and interrogating those opinions regardless of what someone on the internet says.)

i haven't been on your blog in years. (i got a job i like in public service, and it keeps me busy, so only occasionally do i think about 1d.)

when i saw what happened to liam (who was, for a very long time, my favourite member) i found myself typing in your name.

this morning (my time, a few hours ago), i had spoken at length to my friends about my feelings that i had put so much time and care behind an abuser. (i am a survivor of dv, so that makes it even more painful.)

i also talked about my guilt over still feeling defensive about some aspects of liam's life (particularly the way he was piled on when he was just a little stupid or made jokes people didn't want to understand). i felt guilty for clinging to a belief that he was a good person who experienced addiction and mental health issues and that his story is tragic in so many ways.

(i will never forget how he spoke about drinking excessively for his boss photoshoot, the one where he was in his underwear. that, to me, will always be emblematic of how desperate he was and how sick.)

i'm rambling from the grief, but i thought you would help me make sense of this, and it didn't take much scrolling through a search for liam on your blog for me to find the post about abusers not being cackling evil masterminds.

i think it's really going to help me work through everything i feel. multiple stages and kinds of grief. so i thank you for still being here when so many already left, and i hope you are well, even though i know so many of us are not.

Thanks so much for this anon. It's so lovely that you let me know that you thought of me and shared your thoughts. It's awesome that you like your job and I'm really sorry for the guilt you experienced.

I really appreciate hearing your complex feelings - it helps me make sense of my own.

I had tried to answer honestly when anons had asked me how I was responding to Liam once Maya had described how I treated him. But I'm realising that there was a lot going on that I hadn't really processed. When I talked and thought about my response - I focused on what I was doing - how I was posting what I reblogged and not really my feelings.

I had so much affection for Liam - after Harry and Louis he was the one I responded to the most. The way he would just say things was charming, hilarious, and terrifying at different times (it's where my URL comes from). He was so transparent about wanting to follow the rules and wanting to make everyone happy - and hated when they were impossible individually and also conflicted. And I responded to that both as an observer and as someone else who had that very human reaction (I've been wondering if people who mention his desire to make people happy in their statements are intending to draw the connection between that need and the distress he felt.). My 'Oh Lima' tag - I think reflects the combination of responses I had to him.

That affection withstood a lot. There aren't many people who said they were voting Boris Johnson in the 2019 UK election - where my response was anything but life long range. But what he said was so absurd - and so compatible with the other ridiculous political statements he'd made - all I did is move him down on the list of objectively worst members of 1D and keep tagging things 'Oh Lima'.

I wasn't naieve. I knew there was a high risk that he was hurting people, particularly women he was having sex with. I've said as much at various points. I knew that there's a risk with any men, particularly touring musicians, and particularly people whose coping mechanisms for their distress are destructive.

So I wasn't surprised when Maya described how she'd been treated. I stopped allowing to respond publicly to Liam in that mode. But that didn't resolve or change how I felt. Years of affection, built up through empathy, just sat alongside the knowledge about what he'd done. I think that was a fine response - I had other priorities this year than resolve what I thought about Liam Payne. I think part of my inability to articulate anything immediately after his death was because existing tension.

It's really natural to feel guilty - but I hope you feel like you don't need to. I didn't feel guilty about my reaction to some of the pile ons about Liam. I hated the way that people felt righteous about making fun of everything he did. It matters if someone chases their girlfriend with an axe - it doesn't matter if someone does cringey dancing at the concert - and treating those as the same is incredibly trivialising with violence. I thought the response to him on Logan Paul's podcast was all about people pretending their desire to make fun of people was righteous.

His story was tragic. I knew one of the things that I was observing and responding to was Liam's distress. But that didn't make it easy to reconcile my what I'd seen, and his responses to distress that he'd hidden until recently. Learning to hold the line about the harm people do, and process our connections to them and understanding of their humanity - is an ongoing process for all of us.

I think it's really normal for our response to this to be multi-staged. What it brings up will be different for everyone. I'm still trying to understand what it means for me (I've realised since his death that wanting to keep everyone happy and follow the rules is causing a lot of my stress at work. And I probably identified with Liam more than I knew). I'm so glad you found my tumblr in this moment and that it was useful.

When we got to where we were going, I pulled out my Sky Mapping app and pointed it where the clouds had been. And I found Vega, which is part of the summer star region.

"Thank you for being part of our teenage years. You will be missed dearly 💔"

I think Zayn was so wise to pull away from the limelight, but as he himself said it’s a part of his nature to be introverted and withdraw. Liam on the other hand seemed to be a person who (much like Louis) thrived in group setting, with people around, socialising, entertaining… he would’ve needed someone else to pull him out of that world …he had fought so hard to be a part of, even when it became his poison..

i was concerned for zayn for so, so long. but when i saw he had been able to put one foot in front of the other and build a community outside of the spotlight i relaxed. he had found peace. then with louis' tragedies i worried myself sick over him and his wellbeing. but he was able to have such a great support system around him (and he's also one of the strongest people i've ever seen to do what he's done and to continue to show up every day despite what he's been through at the ages he experienced them).

This picture broke me. I also read yesterday in the Uk there was the brightest supermoon… I like to think nature has a way to welcome us after we pass and this made me feel a little bit better. Maybe he found peace ❤️

You can always find him in the region of the summer stars ✨ ( x )

18/10/24

PLEASE CONSIDER SAVING THIS TO READ FOR LATER ESPECIALLY IF YOUR ARE FEELING VERY UPSET AND AFFECTED BY THIS RIGHT NOW. 🖤

you: wh

me, briskly removing my shoes and shaking fragments of rubble out of them: One Direction is perhaps the first band to exist entirely within the Panopticon, from the very beginning, and yet even that was not enough for us. Can you imagine how difficult it would become to hold onto a “self” when what people want most from you are the moments of your life that specifically are NOT FOR THEM? It wasn’t just what they DID, we wanted to know what they FELT, constantly. We demanded to know but we did not want to be TOLD. The knowledge could only be “authentic” if it was not meant for us

you: why are you in my house

me, climbing into your bed and pulling your blankets up to my chin: The endless “documentaries,” the social media – we had an unprecedented, and unprecedentedly intimate, degree of access to these people, and still what we valued most were secrets and accidents. What we wanted was their interiority, and when we could not have that we invented it. Wouldn’t you resent having to constantly be GRATEFUL for that grasping, rapacious love? I would

you: are you crying?