Hey everyone! I compiled some interesting details about sexuality in Fine Line and Walls. A THREAD! To

Let me know if your thoughts/anything to add! Stole the photo from @hsxxxlt

Let's start with Adore You. We follow the story of the peculiar boy who was born different, and was shunned by his society and ostracized which left him feeling sad and lonely. Any queer person watching this immediately recognizes that story.

Those around him didn't know how to deal with someone different, as society often doesn't either. We don't see peculiar boy being angry or frustrated at them, he turns his frustration internally and chooses to tune himself down.

He hides away, losing his 'smile,' which meant that he had lost himself. He hides away under the metaphorical weight of the clunky old school diving suit helmet. The skies were quite gloomy in eroda for the peculiar boy.

He walks on to the beach, puts rocks into his pockets and walks into the water. The world had beaten him down enough that he had decided to give up.

The fish, draws our strongest parallel to Louis the Fish. After trying to conform, the fish had given up on life. If you only watch the short music video, it looks like the boy save the fish but in reality they saved each other.

Saying "walk through your rainbow paradise" in the very first line establishes a strong message. This combined with H saying it's a love song about the initial stages of meeting someone and referring to the fish as a HE.

The boy needs to let the fish go because eroda is not the right place - for either of them. This cliff scene parallels L's imagery beautifully and clearly they made a choice to parallel because it would have been easier to let go of the fish at the beach where he was found.

The peculiar boy screams into his jars, quite literally bottling up his frustration stemming from feeling shunned and alone. We later see him using channelling these bottled up emotions to fuel his journey into the world!

The scream he stores in the jar is the same scream in Lights Up right before the first chorus. This beautifully connects the themes of being forced to hide away and "stepping into the light" in both songs. https://Twitter.com/farahrroushdy/status/1257890567658385408?s=19

Lights Up is a beautiful celebration of sexuality and self expression. It starts with H rubbing his eyes as he "steps into the light", like he's been in the dark. This song is about freedom and leaving behind the people forcing him to hide away.

Scenes depicting him surrounded by people, semi nude, touching him and each other, are a loud message of his sexuality. He never does make eye contact with these people, alluding to only a physical connection, which goes with the theme of the album: "having sex and feeling sad."

These shots are very fleeting but explicit. We see H strung up by strings like a puppet, glittery show clothes on, a man behind him in the first photo. This adds to the lyrics that are a fuck you to those who controlled him and kept him closeted.

These imagery shows him looking at a version of himself in the water. It is him in the water, tattoos match up. It's version of him that is bound and not free staring at the version that is raw and human. This is a parallel to L looking at reflections of himself.

Reminder that C'olton H'aynes, a now openly gay actor who was closeted and forced to have beards, is the person driving the bike in this scene! Here's the post he made: https://twitter.com/clowning28/status/1306278360625098758?s=19

H is always faced away from C, a pointed absence of any emotional or physical connection, simply two people in the same boat. This interview of C speaks VOLUMES on why he had to be the one driving the bike: https://twitter.com/capaldislarrie/status/1306263197998088192?s=19

We see them encounter cops towards the end, and H looks back in concern. This speaks to me about policing of sexual freedom in a lot of spaces. It's unclear what that interaction leads to because this is where the music video ends.

L really wrote a whole gender neutral album. In fact, the only gendered pronoun he uses in his solo career is "I wanna lay where she lays" and honestly, he's an absolute blessing for that. We also have gay symbolism and "Styles" in Miss You and the Hs on the stage while live.

Now for Walls: Walls keep things hidden and L shows us the walls that have surrounded his life that are finally coming down. This is about overcoming those who kept him closeted all along, similar to Lights Up. This is a love song and the walls were a barrier to the relationship.

We start outside, the place with the walls, then L takes us through the door to the hidden world (AT 1:32). We see him feeling like a target amidst heternormativity. Masks hide those who he truly feel sexual euphoria with, which is a parallel to Lights Up but H isn't hiding.

A running theme in the album is being forced to hide away who he is, but not having to anymore. Here are some lyrics I thought reflect that sentiment

The whole arc in WMI Director's Cut shows "totally not Simon Cowell" constantly controlling the boys and telling them to keep their masks on, that's all that matters.

And just the whole of Only the Brave is a very loud statement on needing to be brave enough to choose love. Give me a straight explanation for "a church of burnt romances." I'll wait. You could turn the volume to this song all the way down, and it'll still be loud.

So so proud of the Larents