Hi, sorry I'm new - is there actual proof that IICF and home were written when L & H were apart? What happened? (Also... Are there headcanons around this? Cause it's BEAUTIFUL) thanks!

yes, there’s proof and just be warned, because once you see all the timing you literally won’t recover. sorry this took so long, but i wanted to collect as much proof as possible to reeaaally fuck you up. :) 

so the OTRA tour break was from april 5th to june 4th, and the boys all talked about doing a lot of songwriting while they weren’t on tour. remember how they mentioned multiple times during MITAM press that they split up and went with different outside writers and came back with a bunch of material? that was during this time. 

the general fandom theory is that louis wrote home on april 14th, 2015, because that’s the song he wrote with liam and jamie, and he posted this on insta: 

they’d been apart for less than two weeks at that point. the next day, harry pops up wearing the famous blue bandana in west hollywood: 

and we assume it’s just a shout out to fandom, thinking that harry’s reassuring us that everything’s cool with them while louis is papped out at clubs every single night for weeks on end. not realizing that louis had just spent the day before writing what would become one of the most iconic relationship songs the band has done so far, and even made liam get all emosh: 

then louis was supposed to fly to LA to write with julian (and so he would have still been within the two week rule, as harry was already there and would be for a while), but julian changed his plans and flew to london. so the two week rule was broken, we were all sad but we understood, can’t be seen together, etc etc. 

we don’t know the exact day when iicf was written, as far as i know, but it was within those couple of weeks louis was supposed to be in LA and wasn’t. all we do know is that later, liam says he cried while recording it, anne says it’s her favorite, and louis says he cried too (DEATH!!!), and that harry has never, ever given an actual explanation of the meaning. here’s what he said in the track-by-track explanation: 

which is basically “erm, um, PIANO. PIANO IS COOL LET’S. LET’S TALK ABOUT PIANO.” or also this. 

and then, at the MITAM listening party, the video for IICF turned out to be a literal homage to baby larry, showing unseen clips and sending us all spiralling.

later, as promo season rolled around, harry and louis very much claimed those songs as their own. the day the perfect EP was put on spotify (out of nowhere), louis tweeted this: 

and then (AND THIS IS POTENTIALLY THE WORST PART), when louis went in early november to vancouver and atlanta and the stalkers and update accounts started hinting heavily at a winter girlfriend who we’d later learn was danielle, harry tweets this: 

so basically, we don’t even need any headcanons. it’s bad enough all on its own.