we made it, don’t let it break your heart, and kill my mind.
the wmi dc thread, and how it relates to adore you.

this is going to be long as FUCK. there’s so much to unpack here. SO much. so many little things, so many little hints louis gave us in this chapter of his story.

disclaimer: i’m a larrie, this thread WILL mention larry, although i’ll likely be referring to L’s significant other as the s/o or the subject, because it’s his story whether or not it’s about larry.

if you’re an anti here to send hate, I’m asking you to please click the button in the top left of your screen and leave this thread.

ok, so to start off the thread im going to explain what on earth the wmi dc is. it stands for we made it director’s cut, which is a compilation of the we made it, dont let it break your heart, and kill my mind music videos, with scenes added in between each to piece together

one story. each music video makes relative sense on it’s own, but the story works best when threaded together.

now, before i get into the actual mv, i’m going to talk about the lyrics. i won’t be analyzing kmm because the song is quite obviously about sex and doesn’t need much analysis, it’s just a banger, but i’ll go through quickly what parts of each song stood out to me most.

“’Cause we made it
Underestimated
And always underrated” —> referring to the fact that young love is often underestimated. when you fall in love at 16-18, it usually doesn’t last. and, to a homophobic management, a gay couple is even less likely, under outside pressure

“Now we’re saying goodbye
Waving to the hard times
Yeah, it's gonna be alright” —> they’ve made it out of the dark place

“Like the first time
Met you at your doorstep
Remember how it tasted
Looking into your eyes
Baby, you were still high
Never coming down with your hand in mine” —> we obv dont know an exact story, but i want to note that they stayed at harry’s

dads house for two weeks as a band when they’d just formed, likely when harry and louis first got close. do what you will with that information :)

“Oh my, I remember those nights
Meet you at your uni', cheap drinks, drink ’em all night
Staying out 'til sunrise” —> this is a stunt lyric, clear as day. mr. “sleeping on our problems like we’ll solve them in our dreams” wrote this? nonono.

“Share a single bed and tell each other what we dream about
Things we'd never say to someone else out loud” —> this clip, where harry lays on two single beds pushed together. also, “this bed was never made for two”…

“We were only kids, just tryna work it out” —> this one line just… they were 16/18 and trying their very best to make a relationship work and then on top of it had to deal with so much outward pressure. they were just kids. just kids. but then they had all this shit happen

“Wonder what they'd think if they could see us now, yeah” —> what can’t we see about a public relationship?

“Oh, God, what I could've become
Don't know why they put all of this on us when we’re so young” —> literally…everything in the band. all of it. but, especially the closeting and the womanizer image on harry. they put ALL OF THIS on louis and harry when they were literally kids

“Done a pretty good job dealing with it all
When you’re here, don't need to say no more
Nothing in the world that I would change it for” —> but they made it out alive, because they loved each other, and they wouldn’t give that up even if not to deal with all this

“Singing something pop-y on the same four chords
Used to worry ’bout it, but I don't no more, yeah” —> this is obv the 1d uan/tmh image. the same four chords. the thought that all their songs were just shitty pop songs that dont sound the same. (side note but not a pop song give

me the vibes of this line). but he doesn’t worry about it anymore. he’s given up playing to their image of him.

now, some important things to note about we made it. for billboard, louis says, “The verses are written about the early times of me and my girlfriend, me going to visit her at university and stuff.” that uni line, it was so not a lyric he would write,

compared to something like defenseless, so i find it interesting he mentioned that uni line again—that stunt lyric again.

and, for apple music, louis says, “Listen, I like the song, I like the song. Would I say it’s one of my favorites? No, probably not. It was one of the record label’s favorites.” he calls it a label favorite. louis’ label at the time, syco, was homophobic and (possibly) closeted

him. this label loved this track where he practically name drops his girlfiriend or, quiet possibly, his beard.

now im not gonna go through dlibyh entirely, but just a few things.
harry lost his stepdad, robin, in new york (or found out while he was there), hence ever since new york. dlibyh reads like a love letter to someone who is hurting, uttering, “i know this hurts like hell,

but i swear to fucking god you will get through this.” that’s what this song sounds like to me.

OK NOW FOR THE DC.
the rest of this thread will probably be a completely random ramble of everything i drew from it, but here you go.

a brief summary of the important things, A BOSS MAN WHO WANTS MONEY BOSSES AROUND FIVE YOUNG MEN AND BRINGS THEM TO STEAL MONEY AND GAIN POWER FROM THEM. joe, the main character, is forced to be seperated from his girlfriend because the father doesn’t want his child with joe.

and then they reunite on a beach after joe jumps in the water and steals his money, taking a leap no one suspected he could survive. but he does.

1.joe had to disappear before he could come back

the two clocks in the wmi music video (pictured here) resemble a popular piece of queer art. i’ll link someone else’s thread because they explained it far better than i will. https://twitter.com/hazsunflowerlou/status/1314715490275790848

the pink and blue claw machines, which, if you didn’t know, used to be harry and louis’ colors because of their his and hers blankets, and they also dispense stuffed animals (rbb, sbb)

w hile he’s walking through the arcade and sings “dont know why they put all of this on us when we were so young”, he glances off to the side toward a paceman machine. on it are two ghosts.

at the end of the directors cut, he’s drowning but the memories of his lover save him and he reaches the beach, where they can be together. and in adore you, harry tries to drown himself by putting rocks in his pockets. it’s the same story, two sides.

the license plate in the wmi video says FYSI FXT, which is fuck you simon, and then the x factor backwards

“put your fucking mask on” and “i decide what you do, and when you do it. understand? good boy.” send tweet

joe, at the end of the mv, survives. but he survives water a human could not normally survive, which sounds stupid ik but thinking abt how harry wrote a song abt a fish…

the coin pusher game in the arcade scenes are actually based off the x factor… (the x quacker)

in the same shot as the rainbow wheel is a pink panther. the pink panthers name has been used for queer rights associations since the 70s

the fact that the girl in the mv is the guy who represent’s simon’s son…and that harry is sony’s golden boy, but louis has been a leader behind the scenes, as joe is in the mv…and the dad doesn’t want joe to ruin the girl…like a gay relationship could have ruined harry’s image

this one is a stretch and full creds to indiaalphawhiskey on tumblr, but louis in front of the wheel in wmi mimicks this religious image, just like harry does in adore you promo

harry’s literal back in the we made it lyric video

louis getting with eleanor at 19, when wmi is about laying in bed with someone at 17/18…talking about your dreams…while eleanor is a fake influencer who hasn’t accomplished anything on her own

we made it and you’re still the one both start with spoken word, for one, but also we made it started with the title. “looks like we made it” s a lyric from you’re still the one, a song harry sang with kacey, who was wearing a rainbow dress, and changed the lyrics to

“looks like they made it, they’re still together, etc.” as harry sat with a smug smile on his face strumming guitar

so, the og version of wmi said “oh my, i remember those TIMES” so we know it was changed. i’ll leave you to decide what he says, but no one heard uni before the song came out. it sounds more like “oh my, i rememeber those times, meeting with you, cheap drinks drink em all night”

so, why change it? why was uni so important? perhaps to tie it to E

wmi is about 4 different things, apparently “it’s about my relationship with the fans” “about the time with my gf at uni” “it relates to my mates” “they put a lot of pressure on us in the band”

harry on apple music on falling “one thing i hadn’t experienced before was how i felt during the making of this record. the times when i felt good and happy were the happiest I’ve ever felt in my life and the times when i felt sad were the lowest i’ve ever felt in my life.”

dlibyh: “when the highs too high and the lows too low”

-joe’s gf watches joe play footie with a massive smile on her face
-the hand in the dlibyh lyric video wears a ring where harry wore his peace ring

the dont let it break your heart promo poster was made by @ forgodsakelarry and reposted by louis on instagram

visit eroda chatted with fans before dlibyh, then stopped for an hour, then back again…perhaps they watched the mv, too?

tw // ww2
-
louis’ jumper in dlibyh soccer scenes has an upside down triangle. the gay symbol popularized by the phrase silence=death during the aids crisis, reclaimed by the queer community after upside down pink triangles were used to identify gays in nazi concentration camps

louis is a side character in his own story. he isn’t in control of ANYTHING.

in the kmm part of the mv, this ring is there

SEE

louis takes the money at the end. the side character becomes the main character, just like that
and louis also drives the getaway car in DLIBYH

throughout the whole dc, joe has a beard, but he emereges from the water clean shaven and without a shirt…like he’s undressed
clothes ≈ closet

a song called happy as larrie, by a group harry supports and has merch for, has the lyric “cause you’re adored and not alone, and everythings gonna be okay. you dont have to swim forever.”

he survives the dive. nobody thought louis could go solo, but he did. he made it.

harry wrote a song for love simon (where one of the character’s emails is bluegreen118 btw) called alfie’s song. so this guy alfie arcuri filmed his mv w the same wheel as in the wmi mv.

at the end of the wmi mv, a rainbow building can be seen. lil nas x put rainbow buildings in his mvs before he came out.

and joe’s character consistently wears a ring on his right middle finger, where harry wore the peace ring which fans speculate louis gave to harry in 2013 and he’s worn ever since.

louis, on his fans. “they’re like little detectives. they are funny.”

the next things are theory based. the dc ends with only the brave, a song literally about the oppression of the queer community. usually he previews his next singles in mvs..

also, harry filmed the golden mv on a beach, perhaps in his music video he finds what’s golden on the beach, too?

so that’s all i got from the wmi dc. add anything you’d like into the replies and if it’s relevant i’ll quote them and add to the thread :) here’s baby louis for making it this far <3