One Direction’s fans are not happy with HBO’s groundbreaking, controversial and buzzy new teen drama, Euphoria. The Zendaya-led show has been dominating the water cooler each week so far this summer, including at Shadow And Act, where we live-tweet the show on Sundays.

The most recent episode featured an animated sequence as a part of a scene giving backstory to the character of Kat (Barbie Ferreira). As a young teen, she gained popularity on mediums like Tumblr for creating fan fiction, including the much-documented fan fiction between One Direction bandmates Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson, affectionally referred to by their fanbase as “Larry.” These said fanfictions, along with a good portion of the One Direction fandom, often fantasized (in graphic detail) a supposed sexual encounter between Styles and Tomlinson. In Euphoria, Kat’s imagining of the fanfic is depicted in this animated sequence, narrated by Zendaya’s character Rue, showing a cartooned Styles performing oral sex on Tomlinson.

Series creator Sam Levinson spoke about the scene in a recent interview. “Something that I thought was a fascinating or exciting idea was to take this burgeoning curiosity about sexuality that’s ultimately framed through the lens of fan fiction and allow it to come to life. It’s sort of what Kat’s dream would be if she could see an animation of one of her stories. That was the impetus behind it. It’s sort of allowing her wishes to come true.”

He continued, “The idea behind it was a mixture of slightly rough animation and the surrealistic beauty of something like ‘Belladonna of Sadness,’ where you have animated images exploding into other things and there’s an element of surrealism to it. Personally, I find animation to be extremely difficult. I’d never worked with animation before. It’s just, the possibilities are endless. Which at times can be tricky. It’s like, ‘So, where do we want to take this next?’ And there’s a million thoughts that start to move through my head. It doesn’t have the same kind of confines as filmmaking, so it can be a bit daunting.”

Needless to say, One Direction fans are directing their anger at the show, despite the Larry fanfics that popped up all over the internet during the band’s major wave of success.

I literally just saw a tweet that said this whole euphoria episode mess is larries fault— sorry but I don’t remember asking for this at all. In fact I am COMPLETLEY AGAINST THIS. it doesn’t matter your views on Larry, whatever their relationship is, THIS IS DISRESPECTFUL TO THEM

— deanna .xx (@GUCCI___GHOSTS) June 30, 2019

I just don’t understand why this euphoria show had to use their real names and show one direction images? They could have made it clear who they were referencing with out using names “two members from the most popular boy band” would have got the message across just fine.

— HS Updates ✨ (@WW1DReport) July 1, 2019

if euphoria really has an animated larry sex scene i am going to be LIVID that’s so disrespectful and fucking GROSS

— ???? (@selflovehes) June 30, 2019

Because of all their fans speaking out about it, Tomlinson responded to a tweet about the show, saying that he did not approve of the scene.

I can categorically say that I was not contacted nor did I approve it.

— Louis Tomlinson (@Louis_Tomlinson) July 1, 2019

Outside of the die-hard 1D fans, many approved of the sequence, particularly how it highlights this particular part of the internet that Gen Z grew up on.

i have a serious question: what is so bad about a larry sex scene in euphoria of you’re okay with explicit fanfics in general? like if you don’t like explicit fics anyways okay but what’s the difference that makes y’all say this is disrespectful and fics aren’t?

— f (@franziproof) June 30, 2019

euphoria really held a mirror up to 1D stans and showed them how weird it is to write larry smut it’s so funny to me ????

— yalitza apariciosus (@dunevillenuve) July 1, 2019

Larry has and always will go beyond just the confines of fan art and fan fiction and a fun little ship that the fandom enjoys because of the toxicity that surrounds. Euphoria simply shocked you into realizing it.

— THE FIRST PRIDE WAS A RIOT (@SeaweedBrain320) July 2, 2019

Our take on the Euphoria fan fiction debacle: who cares, campy smut is fun

— House of Fic Podcast (@HouseOfFicPod) July 2, 2019

y’all really getting mad that #Euphoria did that fan fiction scene acting like y’all hadn’t read fan fictions like that before. plus they really don’t need consent to air the scene considering they did nothing wrong.

— ᴄʜʀɪs ???? (@_alesandrochris) July 2, 2019

they are just angry that kat in euphoria got credit for larry stylinson fan fiction and they didn’t ???? https://t.co/ONMbUiNbqY

— peter parker love acc (@purplerogerss) July 2, 2019

Game of Thrones certainly agrees in the show’s favor.

Kat Hernandez, a breaker of chains, writer of fan fiction, and queen of the Internet.

— Game of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) July 1, 2019

Euphoria airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on HBO.

READ MORE:

WATCH: Here’s How That Impossible Rotating Scene Happened In HBO’s ‘Euphoria’

Photo: HBO

Louis Tomlinson

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