#a true mastermind !!

[otabeez]

Bro wasn't even gonna say anything! He just wanted to be dramatic and give us crumbs!!!

Martyn: But um, but yeah, that was cool that we managed to find each other in like the, uh, the grandfather clock and stuff like that. So that was really really good. In terms of what was rat!Martyn, character!Martyn going to say to Ren…who knows. (Scoff-laughs) Who knows, huh? Nobody knows. Was he gonna…say something about…the Datastream? Was it gonna be something else, who knows. We don’t know, we don’t know.

[accirax]

Happy 5th Anniversary DRDT!!!!!!! and happy birthday Mai too :D

[anthurak]

Still of the door with all the very-cool-looking emblems of the Sins.

Seems like going from top-to-bottom and left-to-right, we have Satan, Beelzebub, Mammon, Leviathan, Asmodeus and Belphagor, with Lucifer of course being on the very top.

Now if this arrangement is meant to indicate any kind of hierarchy among the Sins, then that has some pretty interesting implications.

Like as much as I've stated in the past that the idea of Asmodeus being the 'weakest' of the Sins should be taken with a MASSSIVE grain of salt, his emblem being on the bottom alongside Belphagor would line up with that.

Also, Satan's emblem being directly below Lucifer's could likewise tie into how he seems to be trying to take charge of Hell in Luci's absence.

However, by that same token, this would indicate that BEELEZEBUB of all people is actually on the same level as Satan in the hierarchy.

Obviously I'm probably reading way too much into this, but there could nonetheless be some hints here to something further down the line.

[chimerafeathers]

i know we love to rag on Siffrin for feeling so miserably guilty and manipulative for the crime of [checks notes] “doing nice things for their friends so that they’ll be happy and care about him even if it’s not perfectly sincere on his end”

but like. in context i don’t think that thought process is anywhere near as nonsensical as it always sounds written out like that

i’m sure i’m just stating the obvious here but it’s not really about the “crime” of making people happy. it’s about what he’s not doing, which is anything that would allow their friends to have any real knowledge or agency over the situation they’re all in.

it’s about never acting according to his real feelings in the moment and letting them see the messier version of him that exists now, never allowing their relationships to evolve or develop meaningfully beyond the “safest” iteration, the thing that is Known and produces the Correct Results, because anything else has the possibility of leading to negative emotions towards Siffrin.

Siffrin knows he’s not really doing all this for their benefit, not entirely, because the “right” thing to do would give them the full context to choose how they feel and what to do about it. they’re happy, but in a way they don’t get to keep. they’re happy, but in a way that keeps Siffrin safe from anything more complex and real. they’re happy, but only because some Siffrin in the past said the right things once, and this new, bitter, lonely, desperate version wouldn’t know how to get the “correct result” without a script to follow. they’re happy, and it was real once, it meant something once, but not anymore.

they cared about that Siffrin, yes, but would they still care about this one, if they knew? if Siffrin ever allowed them to know? (he won’t, he can’t, he refuses.)

and there’s something that could have been said in favor of Siffrin allowing himself this “selfishness” if it made him happy anyway, if it could be a genuine source of comfort in a difficult situation—but it doesn’t! not really! because that guilt is there, because that fear is there, because of how flimsy it all inevitably feels.

so they’re not doing it for their family’s benefit, because that happiness is predicated on lies and ignorance. he’s barely doing it for his own benefit, because they’re torturing themself by revealing things they no longer want to reveal, concealing things they no longer want to conceal, acting out of fear of rejection rather than genuine desire for connection. who benefits from this hollow “kindness,” really?

that’s why the last loop had to be the ugliest one. Siffrin had to see that the worst could happen and there could still be love and connection on the other side. that even when the party sees the worst of him, when they have the agency he’s been knowingly denying them, they will still choose to love him.

[impsandstars]

Oh Blitz. My sweet soft boy. Look at him, being so gentle and understanding, allowing Stolas into his home to take care of him.

[h3r0b0y]

i keep seeing saiki swap aus and i think its really funny

[m4rs-ex3]

7x04 // 3x03 // 4x02 // 7x02 // 3x05

i made a promise to the elf i love. i made a promise to the human i love

[lichenzhou]

Mysterious Lotus Casebook: a summary

[tenshiharmonia]

Just saw the new episode of Helluva Boss, and I must say, Bee was right, Satan is hot. Not that I doubted.

[oldfashionedmorphine]

mondays have become my new wednesdays (for wips) since i work on wednesday instead of monday now lol…so with that said, here’s a wip for my byler + henderhop 10 things i hate about you au :)

it’s much longer than i would usually share but i worked a lot on these scenes the past two days and i wish i could start posting this story already, but unfortunately i keep writing everything out of order and there’s a lot that still needs work for the first chapter 🥲 but for now, please enjoy my two favorite schemers; dustin and lucas <3

—————

“Dude, you’ll never guess what happened!”

“What?”

Dustin looks around at the bustling hallway. “On second thought—not here, too many ears,” he says, then he leads Lucas into the nearest bathroom. And Lucas sighs at him when he checks under the stalls to make sure the coast is clear first. “Okay, so get this—she didn’t say no!”

“Huh?”

“I asked Jane out and she didn’t say no.”

“Wait—she actually said yes?”

“Well, no—she still isn’t allowed to date, just like you said—but stay with me a moment, ‘cause here’s the kicker—her dad just changed the rules! She told me she can date once her brother does. Can you believe it?! All we have to do is find someone for him and then it’s a done deal!”

“Uh…we?”

“Yeah, well, I thought since I don’t exactly know enough people around here that maybe you’d have a better idea of who’d be up for such a challenge. ‘Cause Jane said Will’s kind of a—”

“Dick?”

“Yup,” he says, nodding. “So?”

“So, what?”

“Do you know someone who might be interested in dating a difficult guy?”

“Uh…yeah, so here’s the thing…Will’s—”

“Gay? Yeah, I know—Jane told me that already.”

“Right, but that’s the problem—I don’t know of any other gay guys in school. He’s kinda the only one.”

“Oh—shit. That sucks."

“Sorry.”

“No, no—it’s fine. Like every other problem there’s always a solution. We just have to think outside the box.”

“Uh-huh.” Lucas checks his watch. “Well, we only got five more minutes until class starts, so maybe we should—”

“Hold on, I just need a sec—it’ll come to me…” Dustin taps a finger on his bottom lip as he starts to pace back and forth while Lucas folds his arms and leans against the wall. Think, dammit—if no one else in this school is gay, and finding someone outside of town would be too much of a logistical nightmare to try and arrange, then how could we get this to work? It’s not like we can force someone to be gay…but maybe—maybe someone could just pretend—yes! That’s it! He snaps his fingers. “I got it! What if—what if we find a guy and we convince him to pretend he’s interested in Will?”

Lucas furrows his brow. “What?”

“Think about it—we don’t need them to actually be gay, they just need to pretend they are.”

“And how would you convince someone to do that?”

“Easy—with money. Everyone has a price, right?”

“I don’t know about that—would you fake being gay for money?”

“I’m not a potential suitor, so my own personal answer to that question is completely irrelevant to the point I’m making.”

“In other words; no?”

“What?! I never said that! All I’m trying to say is that there’s gotta be one guy in this school willing to date Will for a couple bucks!”

“Well,” Lucas shrugs, “I guess…potentially there is at least one guy I can think of who’d maybe be up for it if the money’s good enough—I mean, I don’t know him that well, I’ve just heard some stuff, so no guarantees—but I definitely don’t have enough money to convince anyone of anything.”

“Me either…” Dustin hums, then he snaps his fingers again. “Which means we’re also gonna need someone to help finance the operation—someone rich, but also stupid enough to believe it's all their idea. Know anyone like that?”

“Actually…yeah.” Lucas grins. “You remember Troy, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the other day after practice, I overheard him in the locker room talking with some of the guys…about Jane.”

“Oh yeah? What’d he say?”

“They were kinda ragging on him a little about how he’s never had a girlfriend and he mentioned that she was the only girl in school he was interested in and how much it sucked she can’t date anyone. So…it’ll probably be pretty easy to convince him to try and pay a guy to date Will if he truly thinks it’ll give him a chance with her.”

“Okay—yeah. We can work with that,” Dustin says. “Think you can get him on board?”

“I’ll talk to him during lunch, but we gotta get to class before—” the bell rings, “—and we’re late.”

“Shit. Sorry.”

“Man, you owe me a soda.”

🟦🟨🟩🟦🟨🟩🟦🟨🟩🟦🟨🟩🟦🟨🟩🟦🟨

Halfway through lunchtime, they get the ball rolling on their ploy with Troy.

Lucas hangs back for a couple minutes while Dustin gets into place. He slides into a seat at a table adjacent to Troy and his friends as nonchalantly as possible—Lucas told him the plan would work best if he didn’t hover, so the compromise was for him to sit within earshot while pretending to study his chemistry textbook. So far they hadn’t noticed him. He gives Lucas a thumbs up from across the cafeteria, then he watches as Lucas signals back before he moves to approache Troy’s table.

“Aye yo, Troy,” Lucas says with a casual upward nod.

Troy looks up at Lucas, seeming mildly annoyed at the intrusion. “Sinclair,” he replies.

“Got a sec?”

“For now. What’s up?”

Lucas takes a seat in one of the empty chairs. “So, uh…couldn’t help but overhear you talking the other day,” he says, then lowers his voice to a whisper and Dustin can barely hear him, “about Jane Hopper.”

He huffs. “Yeah, what about her?”

“I just…I had a thought—figured it couldn’t hurt to run it by you, you know, just to see if it’s something you’d be interested in.”

Troy shares a quick look with one of his friends—James something, from what Dustin can remember—then he looks back at Lucas, shrugging a shoulder. “Shoot.”

“Okay, so, basically, the situation seems to be that you wanna get with Jane, but her dad won’t let her date anyone until her brother starts dating, yet the odds of that ever happening are practically zero, since you’ve got two major factors working against you when it comes to Will Byers; obviously, everyone knows he’s gay, so the—”

“Are you planning on telling me something I don’t already know anytime soon, Sinclair?”

“Dude, let me finish.”

“Then spit it out already.”

“Hire someone. Pay a guy to take him out—ideally someone not afraid of a little challenge since he’s a bit of a headcase.”

Troy frowns, and when it seems as if a cat had got his tongue, his friend James speaks up, “Got anyone in mind?”

Lucas scans the cafeteria, then he points to the guy he told him about earlier—Mike Wheeler. “Him.”

“Frogface?” James says, laughing as he nudges Troy in the arm.

“Yup. He’s the one you want.”

“Okay, but why him?” Troy asks, brow still furrowed.

“Well, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but the word is that his parents cut him off after he got sent to juvie during sophomore year, so he’s always strapped for cash now—my friend Greg said he was even bragging to some guys in his English class about how he sold part of his liver on the black market to buy a new bass guitar last summer. So I highly doubt he’d say no if you make it worth his while. Plus, he’s clearly done way worse shit than having to date someone like Will Byers—just seems like a solid investment to me.”

“Right,” Troy says—he doesn’t seem convinced or all that interested. “If you say so.”

“Hey—all I’m saying is it can’t hurt to see if he’s willing. You’ve really got nothing to lose if he says no, but everything to gain if he says yes. He gets paid, you get laid—just sayin’.”

Troy’s face turns the slightest shade of pink. He glances around the table at his friends, then looks back at Lucas, nodding. “I’ll consider it…but why the hell are you even telling me this anyway? What’s in it for you?”

“Simple. You get Coach to let me start for finals. I’m tired of being kept on the bench until the last five minutes of the game in the hopes I’ll score him a Hail Mary. Because it’s complete bullshit. You know full well we wouldn’t even need a Hail Mary if he gave me more time on the court, but for some strange reason Coach doesn’t see it that way, and we all know you’re the only one who can change his mind—seeing as he’s your dad and all.”

“Fine. But I swear, Sinclair, you better not choke if—”

Lucas snorts, then he gets up from the table. “Trust me, I won’t…anyway, I’ll catch you ladies later at practice.” He starts to walk away and nods at Dustin, signaling him to follow him, and then they both head toward the cafeteria exit.

“Are we sure we can trust him though?” Dustin asks once they’re in the hallway.

“Man, I wouldn’t trust Troy any farther than you could throw him…but if he can’t convince Mike to take out Will, then it won’t even matter anyway. Right?”

“True…”

tagging some of my fans: @boahey @total-serene560 @magentamee @greenfiend @foodiewithdahoodie @smalltownwheeler @stranger-things-yapper

[ninicaise]

"why don't we see laurent's schemes in kings rising? why does he act so helpless, like a puppet?" idk maybe because laurent & damen are no longer friends for the entire first half of kings rising so laurent is back to being completely alone and after prince's gambit he has no idea what to do without damen beside him. maybe bc laurent is not actually the domino master of the series. the regent is. maybe bc laurent is (canonically) behind in the game and the only reason he ever had a chance of winning is literally bc not him nor his uncle can ever predict wtf damen is going to do next. this is textual btw i am not making shit up. just as the "captive prince" is both damen and laurent, the "prince's gambit" is both laurent's and damen's gambit.

[blitzwhore]

Uhh......smash

[neodiekido]

still insane to me people get upset about maki trying to kill ouma in chapter 5 like. literally everyone thought he was the mastermind for sure. this is just someone trying to kill the mastermind again but this time she has (what seems to be) absolute proof of who it is.

[stolasbuckzo]

Fun fact: pupils vs pupilless

Before banishment:

After banishment:

What I see:

[gardenschedule]

Perceptions of Paul as calculating & John's paranoia

Link to masterpost of quote compilations

“McCartney’s mistake, which he now admits, was to seem invulnerable. […] And yet, he says, the contrast between himself and Lennon, so assiduously cultivated by journalists, was a fabrication. “I wasn’t brilliant at school. I was trouble, just like John. I got caned practically every day, and the only exam I ever passed was Spanish. John and I weren’t black and white, although people took John, for all his aggression, to be the good guy, because he showed his warts. I’ve only just realized, after all this time, that people like to see warts. It makes them sympathetic. I’d always though that, in order to be liked, you had to be unwarty.””

Living with The Beatles’ legacy, the smears that Lennon left behind… and the battle to win my babies back, The Times Newspaper, Monday January 4, 1982.

Paul was the easiest to talk to. He had such energy and such keenness and, unlike John, enjoyed being liked, at least most of the time. I don't see this as a criticism; John himself could be very cruel about Paul's puppy dog eagerness to please. The irony was, and still is, that John's awfulness to people, his rudeness and cruelty, made people like him more, whereas Paul's genuine niceness made many people suspicious, accusing him of being calculating. Paul does look ahead, seeing what might happen, working out the effect of certain actions, but he often ends up tying himself in knots, not necessarily getting what he thought he wanted. I think there is some insecurity in Paul's nature, which makes him try so hard, work so hard. It also means he can be easily hurt by criticism, which was something that just washed over John.

Hunter Davies, Western Mail: The Beatles. (April 9th, 2004)

Even Paul’s immaculate manners could not thaw her. ‘Oh, yes, he was well-mannered–too well-mannered. He was what we call in Liverpool “talking posh” and I thought he was taking the mickey out of me. I thought “He’s a snake-charmer all right,” John’s little friend, Mr Charming. I wasn’t falling for it. After he’d gone, I said to John, “What are you doing with him? He’s younger than you… and he’s from Speke!”’ After that, when Paul appeared, she would always tell John sarcastically that his ‘little friend’ was here. ‘I used to tease John by saying “chalk and cheese”, meaning how different they were,’ she remembered, ‘and John would start hurling himself around the room like a wild dervish shouting “Chalkandcheese! Chalkandcheese!” with this stupid grin on his face.’

Philip Norman, Paul McCartney: The Life. (2016)

“He always suspected me. He accused me of scheming to buy over Northern Songs without telling him. I was thinking of something to invest in, and Peter Brown said what about Northern Songs, invest in yourself, so I bought a few shares, about 1,000 I think. John went mad, suspecting some plot. Then he bought some himself. He was always thinking I was cunning and devious. That’s my reputation, someone who’s charming, but a clever lad. “It happened the other day at Ringo’s wedding. I was saying to Cilia [Black] that I liked Bobby [her husband]. That’s all I said. Bobby’s a nice bloke. Ah, but what do you REALLY think Paul? You don’t mean that, do you, you’re getting at something? I was being absolutely straight. But she couldn’t believe it. No one ever does. They think I’m calculating all the time.

Paul and Hunter Davies, 1981

In the wake of his death you didn’t tour for most of the ‘80s. People suggested that you were scared to go on the road. Was that true? No. People speculate about anything. They always credit me with motives I haven’t even dreamed of. It’s interesting, the way they sort of perceive my life and analyse it for me. In that case, I never thought about touring much. People used to say, “Oh, it’s 10 years since you’ve toured.” I’d go, “Is it? Y’know, I’m not counting.” That’s all that was, really. I don’t know why. Maybe I didn’t fancy it.

The Q Interview, 2007

Astrid in Germany was always a bit suspicious of Paul at first, though his relationship with Stu was also bound up in this. 'It used to frighten me that someone could be so nice all the time. Which is silly. It's ridiculous to feel at home with nasty people, just because you feel that at least you know where you are with them. It's silly to be wary of nice people.'

The Beatles (Updated Edition) (Hunter Davies)

Paul is the easiest to get to know for an outsider, but in the end he is the hardest to get to know. There is a feeling that he is holding things back, that he is one jump ahead, aware of the impression he is giving. He is self-conscious, which the others are not. John doesn't care, either way, what people think. Ringo is too adult to think about such things, and George in many ways isn't conscious. He is above it all.

The Beatles (Updated Edition) (Hunter Davies)

Paul today is still the public Beatle, giving interviews at fairly regular intervals, being open and honest about himself and his past, his worries and his pleasures. Naturally, as ever, there are people who suspect his motives, putting him down for being too charming. Paul may be a bit of an actor, acting the part of Paul McCartney, the charming superstar, still loved by every mum, which can make him sound rather prissy at times, but I believe he does tell the truth about himself.

The Beatles (Updated Edition) (Hunter Davies)

“My problem is to me, I come over as this very together guy, always got his finger on top of everything: the man with no problems. School – a doddle, got all the exams. This is the sort of image of me. Actually, I had murder getting through exams, like I was saying about being on tour during my GCEs. I was like the kid who was getting the cane. Just like John was, but he [Phillip Norman] makes me the very shrewd, always-going-to-succeed guy, and John is the kind of cute, working-class hero. In actual fact though, John was just as shrewd and ambitious as I was. What does me in is he adds to this image I’ve got; I resent that, because I know I’m not that, and I know I’ve never been that.

Paul McCartney’s thoughts from 1983 on Phillip Norman’s ‘Shout!’

The funny thing is, when Apple [started], everything was laid out on the table, it’s like a Monopoly game. We saw who had what. I suddenly had more Northern Song shares than anybody, and it was like, oops, sorry. John was like, “You bastard, you’ve been buying behind my back.” John saw everything like a Harold Robbins movie, you know, which it was. He’s not incorrect. I couldn’t get over the fact that we were really involved in all this. I think to this day, he’ll not understand. I don’t think he would accept right now, my naïveté in it. I think he still suspects me of trying to take over Apple. He still suspects that when I offered the Eastmans as [managers] instead of Allen Klein, he naturally assumed that I would be taken care of better than the others, and that the Eastmans could never be moral enough to be equal in their judgment and do the Beatles’ thing rather than Paul’s thing. I think they still suspect to this day.

The point I was trying to illustrate is that it wasn’t so much John being a bastard as it was his being suspicious towards me, always being suspicious towards me. There was Northern Song shares. And I swear on any holy book you want, I know he won’t believe it, but I know for sure that I didn’t buy them with the view to— If I was really trying to do it, I could have bought an awful lot more. So it does hurt a little bit that there’s someone who still thinks, like, I’m out to get them, or that I always was. That’s one of the nice things about it— It’s a pity [I never said to John, “Fuck off, I’m not trying to do it”—and never was]. But he knows I was kind of— We were behind the scenes, and we did a few little [things] that we had to do, and our ambitions, and it was never a kind of terrifying skeletons in the closet. It was always just normal—but, uh, they …

All You Need Is Love – Peter Brown & Steven Gaines

SG: Were the other Beatles anti-Linda? PMcC: Uh, yeah. I should think so. Like we were anti-Yoko. But you know John and Yoko, you can see it now, the way to get their friendship is to do everything the way they require it. To do anything else is how to not get their friendship. This is still how it is with John and Yoko. I know that if I absolutely lie down on the ground and just do everything like they say and laugh at all their jokes and don’t expect my jokes to ever get laughed at, and don’t expect any of my opinions ever to carry any weight whatsoever, if I’m willing to do all that, then we can be friends. But if I have an opinion that differs from theirs, then I’m a sort of an enemy. And naturally, paint myself a villain with a big mustache on, because to the ends of the earth, that’s how they both see me. They’re very suspicious people [John and Yoko], and one of the things that hurt me out of the whole affair, was that we’d come all that way together, and out of either a fault in my character, or out of lack of understanding in their character, I’d still never managed to impress upon them that I wasn’t trying to screw them. I don’t think that I have to this day.

All You Need Is Love – Peter Brown & Steven Gaines

I was never out to screw him, never. He could be a maneuvering swine, which no one ever realized. Now since the death he’s became Martin Luther Lennon. But that really wasn’t him either. He wasn’t some sort of holy saint. He was still really a debunker. “For ten years together he took my songs apart. He was paranoiac about my songs. We have great screaming sessions about them.

Paul and Hunter Davies, 1981

SALEWICZ: Oh, he was presumably very paranoid. PAUL: I think so. I mean, he warned me off Yoko once. You know, “Look, this is my chick!” ’Cause he knew my reputation. I mean, we knew each other rather well. And um, I felt… I just said, “Yeah, no problem.” But I did sort of feel he ought to have known I wouldn’t, but. You know, he was going through “I’m just a jealous guy”. He was a paranoid guy. And he was into drugs. Heavy.

September, 1986 (MPL Communications, London)

Miles says, “I think Jane was always a bit irritated by John. Because he was so acerbic and difficult to get on with. And paranoid. He didn’t make life easy. I suppose it’s a sort of rapier wit, but it was usually just plain ordinary rudeness. There was nothing special about it.”

Paul McCartney profile for FAME Magazine (March 1990)

“They [Lennon & McCartney] saw each other again in 1977. The Lennons and McCartneys ate dinner together at Le Cirque, Paul’s favourite French restaurant in New York. John regretted going; it was a loathsome night. Paul and Linda blathered on and on about how perfect their lives were, how they had everything they’d ever wanted, and how they were as happy as they’d ever been. Something very paranoid suddenly occurred to John. Maybe Lorraine Boyle was spying on him for the McCartneys! He woke up the next morning still feeling disturbed; he consulted the Oracle. Swan assured him that Paul and Linda were frustrated and unsatisfied. Their marriage was in trouble, he said, predicting it would break up within the year. Lately Swan’s visions had been astonishingly accurate. Relieved, John began composing a song—a little ditty, really, that would never be released—in praise of the Oracle’s powers. But he still couldn’t understand why Paul and Linda had been together for as long as they had. There appeared to be a psychic connection between John and Paul. Every time McCartney was in town, John would hear Paul’s music in his head.”

Robert Rosen, Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon, (2000)

JOHN: […..] And he’s (Jagger) goin’ on about “he never calls. Do you think he ever calls? He never calls me. And he keeps changing his phone number all the time… And he’s hiding behind the kid.” I was hurt by it! You know… The fact that… A, I never call anybody. It’s not pride, it’s just that I never, ever have. REPORTER: Why? JOHN: I never call the other Beatles, I never call anybody. They always call me. REPORTER: Why? JOHN: Cos I’m self-involved! I’m paranoid, too. I don’t like phones… There’s nobody on this earth ever got a call from me that isn’t related, probably. Or a very old friend…

Sept 1980 – John

“Yoko was an extremist and was even more intense than John taking any idea or comment of his to the limit. If, for example, he complained about any of his fellow Beatles she would hint that that Beatle had always been an enemy implying that John should never deal with that person again. Her extreme positions fascinated John and help him take his mind off himself but when she became self-involved and paranoid herself -her paranoia usually dealt with her career, her fame and the fact that even though she had always been famous everyone conspired to keep her from getting even more famous- he had no place to turn. His insecurity about his solo career, his childhood, his relationships with the other Beatles, the way the public perceived Yoko overwhelmed him and he became more and more involved with drugs.”

May Pang, Loving John (1984)

John was lucky. He got all his hurt out. I’m a different sort of a personality. There’s still a lot inside me that’s trying to work it out. And that’s why it’s good to see that wedding-funeral bit, because I started to think, ‘Wait a minute, this is someone who’s going over the top. This is paranoia manifesting itself.’ And so my feeling is just like it was at the time, which is like, He’s my buddy, I don’t really want to do anything to hurt him, or his memory, or anything. I don’t want to hurt Yoko. But, at the same time, it doesn’t mean that I understand what went down.

Paul McCartney: An Innocent Man? (October, 1986)

Some three year later, during the making of Abbey Road, Lennon installed a twin bed in the studio so that Yoko, recuperating from a car crash, could survey proceedings and pass comment though a mike he had suspended over her. The other Beatles positioned themselves around the room as best they could. Yoko would later tell Paul that if, for any reason, he’d seemed to be standing too close to her, all hell would break loose when John got her home. Lennon, she said, was ‘very paranoid’ like that.

McCartney by Chris Sandford

But we were actually quite supportive. Not supportive enough, you know; it would have been nice to have been really supportive because then we could look back and say, “Weren’t we really terrific?” But looking back on it, I think we were okay. We were never really that mean to them. But I think a lot of the time John suspected meanness where it wasn’t really there.

Paul McCartney, interview w/ Chris Salewicz for Musician: Tug of war – Paul McCartney wants to lay his demons to rest. (October, 1986)

I just read about this thing that’s going on sale at Sotheby’s – this Apple booklet with John’s comments in the margins in his own handwriting. It is so bitter. Like, there’s a picture of Paul and Linda’s wedding – and John’s crossed out “wedding” and written in “funeral.” I think it starts to tell there. Another caption says, “Paul goes to Hollywood” – and then he’s apparently written in the margin, “To cut Yoko and John out of the film.” He often thought that we were tryin’ to cut Yoko out of things, to cut her out of Let It Be. I suppose we were, in some degree; because she wasn’t in the Beatles, and it was a Beatles film, and it wasn’t absolutely necessary to have long footage of her in there. She certainly was in there, but obviously they felt she should be in there a little more. I bent over backward trying to see John’s point of view. I still bend over backward trying to not malign him.”

Paul McCartney, Rolling Stone, September 11th, 1986

[cheralith]

i hope anri fujos out and forces nagi to stay with reo on the sole basis of yaoi fanservice bc let’s not forget who hired who here