#this isn't even a “bad” one

[mythserene]

Ladies and gentleman of the jury, this is my case.

(*next day* I definitely got a little ahead of myself with that statement, but I was so happy to get through a single paragraph of a mild example without getting lost in all the other falsehoods that it made me giddy. I do feel unstuck though, and that's worth a lot.)

--

This was supposed to just be a copy of my “Delusional Lewisohn” website post but I started talking and accidentally wrote what I've been trying to say for months.

It starts as my contrasting paragraph of “designing Lewisohn”—how he normally does things—so it's a little stiff and compact, but I spread out fast and while it's probably riddled with typos, this is what he does. It's just usually worse and about more nefarious things.

“It could be they didn’t see much of each other in the summer of 1958.”

In “A BEATLE DIDN’T SAY THAT!” one of my examples was Lewisohn very designedly making it seem like Paul wasn’t around for John after Julia’s death using a combination of an altered quote from George Harrison’s mother and the contextual phrasing surrounding it. Many know of Mrs. Harrison reassuring George that she wasn’t going to die, but Lewisohn cunningly alters the rest of her words and his supporting sentences to make Paul seem unaffected and distant after John’s mother’s death, and to paint George and Paul both as relatively unconcerned, when what Louise Harrison specifically says is that she sent George around to John’s to bring him over so that he could play guitar together with Paul and George, and that “they always helped each other.” For Lewisohn to surgically alter the words that he does quote, chop off the rest, and then sew them back up with misleading insinuations to create not only a false—but opposite—impression of the boys’ closeness after John’s loss is unforgivable.

TUNE IN – Lewisohn

Asked  some years later to describe how he’d been able to help John cope with the loss of Julia, Paul could remember nothing of the period at all. It could be they didn’t see much of each other in the summer of 1958. John was working at the airport, and Paul and George went on holiday together—adventurous for boys of 16 and 17. But Louise Harrison would recall how she encouraged George to visit John at Mendips, “so he wouldn’t be alone with his thoughts.” The awful fact that both his mates had lost their mothers terrified George: the penny dropped that his might die any moment too. “He’d watch me carefully all the time. I told him not to be so silly, I wasn’t going to die.”

THE BEATLES – Davies (cited)

Mrs. Harrison, George’s mother, remembers the effect it had on John. They were still practicing a lot at George’s house, the only house where they got endless hospitality and encouragement. (…) “When John’s mother did die, he didn’t seem to go off his head, but he wouldn’t come out. I forced George to go round and see him, to make sure he still went off playing in their group and just didn’t sit and brood. They all went through a lot together, even in those early days, and they always helped each other. George was terrified that I was going to die next. He’d watch me carefully all the time. I told him not to be so silly. I wasn’t going to die.”

Lewisohn doesn’t outright say that Paul wasn’t around when Julia died, but he strongly infers it—deceptively altering and truncating a supposed-Mrs. Harrison quote—turning George's mom talking about how close the three were at that time and how they helped each other, into support for his inference that Paul barely saw John at this time. He then adds an introductory statement that makes it seem as if Paul was nowhere to be found, without actually saying that.

Yes, that's what I said. It is all lawyer-speak narration. Look at his first two sentences.

Asked some years later to describe how he’d been able to help John cope with the loss of Julia, Paul could remember nothing of the period at all. 

It could be they didn’t see much of each other in the summer of 1958.

But we know the secret. We know what Mrs. Harrison actually said. And so does Mark Lewisohn, by the way.

Now, Lewisohn tells us that someone, somewhere, "some years later" asked Paul this "question" that I literally cannot even comfortably end with a question mark:

“Paul, describe how you were able to help John cope with the loss of Julia?”

Really?

I'm not going to lie, I don't believe him, but even if we give Lewisohn the benefit of the doubt— **excuse me i can't stop laughing. one sec**

—even if we give Lewisohn the benefit of the doubt that someone, somewhere, at some unnamed time, asked Paul to describe how he was able to help John cope with the loss of Julia, just what exactly would we expect Paul McCartney's answer to that to be? Honestly, try to imagine the look on Paul's face if he was asked to describe how he helped John to cope after Julia's death.

“Paul could remember nothing of the period at all.”

Did an appellate lawyer write this? No, this is contract law genius. I can find the holes in almost any contract, and Lewisohn's own words around a misused quote are a work of legal art. He never quite says what you think he said.

But on the quotes, themselves, Lewisohn swings for the fences. He is without shame or fear. He has no qualms about putting quotation marks around any old thing he wants to say. One cannot go too many pages without finding something that shocks the conscience.

These are not “mistakes.” They are a very deliberate cutting and pasting together of historical figures' words to make them mean something different—and often opposed to—what the speaker intended. He then surrounds the misquotes with carefully worded insinuations that don't really say what you thought they did.

THE ACTUAL MRS. HARRISON “QUOTE”

Davies is very good at weaving together information-heavy exposition together with the quotes from his interviews, and since he interviewed everyone himself, he can tell us a lot in his own words.

What that does for you and me is that we get the context from the guy who asked the questions and spent time with these people, and that makes it a lot harder to get away with using these quotes out of context. Like, before we even get to the direct quote from George's mom, Davies is telling us what she remembers from the time. And it's a lot. Because that's when the boys practiced at the Harrison's almost every day. And it's awesome because her memories almost always include what the boys were eating at the time. (Seriously.) Like, she'd “given them all beans and toast” a few months before Julia died when she heard John say to Paul, “I don't know how you can sit there and act normal with your mother dead. If anything like that happened to me, I'd go off me head.”

Davies also calls Mrs. Harrison “one of nature's ravers.” 🥹

Everyone seems to agree that during this time the three were always at the Harrisons, and it's certainly the picture we get from Mrs. Harrison.

Davies is telling us all this, and leads into her direct quote by telling us what she “remembers.”

Mrs. Harrison, George’s mother, remembers the effect it had on John. They were still practicing a lot at George’s house, the only house where they got endless hospitality and encouragement.

And I trust Mrs. Harrison's memory because I am a mom, and I remember every trauma of my children's friends because I was the local Mrs. Harrison. We love those kids with all our hearts and they're so connected to our own kids that nothing happens to one without all of them feeling it. And the mom seeing it all. So how do we need Paul's answer to “Describe how you were able to help John cope with the loss of Julia?” when Mrs. Harrison has twenty stories, all with corresponding menus?

And Mrs. Harrison is saying that she sent George to get John out of his house so they could all play guitars together “in their group.” Not, George and John and no one knew where Paul was.

Where's Paul? Who could possibly know? “It could be they didn’t see much of each other”—but could it? It could be that Paul went ice skating in Sweden, EXCEPT HE FUCKING DIDN'T. Why are you lying to me in legalese in a Beatles biography?

“But Louise Harrison would recall how she encouraged George to visit John at Mendips” isn't true, but also isn't sane. If you pause and put as much thought into each sentence as was spent constructing them, you notice how many of them are patently ludicrous. Mrs. Harrison didn't encourage George to “visit” at Mendips because no child “visited” at Mendips. What are you even saying? To keep Paul and John away from each other you're talking nonsense. Visit? At Mendips? I can just picture John, Mimi and George sitting around having tea. But also, Mr. Lewisohn, those are not words that Mrs. Harrison said, and in fact, those words mean something completely different than the words she said.

What she said was she sent George over there “to make sure he still went off playing in their group and just didn’t sit and brood.”

And Nature's Raver Mom would see John not showing up like usual and would send her son out to make sure John knew he was wanted, and give him a little kick if necessary. She would want him in her house so she could feed him and make sure he was okay and to give him the comfort of playing music together with his friends.

They're the Beatles, and they got through it playing music. That's the real story, the true story, and a much better story.

And then she says “they all went through a lot together, even in those days, and they always helped each other.”

By cutting that out, leading into the quote you cut it from by speculating about where Paul was, and opining that maybe they didn't see each other much you are being purposefully deceptive and there simply is no other rational inference. None.

(I have tripled my website post now. I regret nothing.)

Let's take this baby home.

Because Mark Lewisohn completes the picture of John alone and ignored by George and Paul, and he does it by sneaking his own words into the mouth of George Harrison's dead mother.

I just want to make sure you got that. Like, let it sink in.

Mark Lewisohn changes Mrs. Harrison's actual words from “sit and brood” into “alone with his thoughts,” which further emphasizes the absolute absence of Paul and George. But he knows that John was not alone because he replaced Mrs. Harrison's words that said they were together playing music with his own words of John all alone. And then he has the nerve to even suggest that Paul and George are off together on holiday when John needs them most, while conjuring a parallel image of a traumatized John left separate and alone. (Except for his inner world.)

And I'm sorry, but I have to repeat it one more time: Lewisohn does all this by telling us that Louise Harrison said it. And although a lawyer could make a technical case that I am not being lied to here, I am.

Delusional Lewisohn is alive and well on my website. This has been Designing Lewisohn, signing off.

There's a lot, lot more and a lot, lot worse, but it's all of a piece. Not different in kind, just of degree. (But the degrees are significant.)

Tag 😏 @wingsoverlagos

[hinamie]

I'm always pushing you away from me / but you come back with gravity / and when I call, you come home

[pineapple-frenzy]

Book 2 au: sparring sessions and short hair katara

They like to have sparring sessions in order to keep their bending skills sharp. They allow themselves to go all out and not hold back at all cause they know if anyone got hurt, Katara could just heal them

But anyways, wouldn't it be kinda funny if Zuko accidentally burned Katara's hair tho? Aofkqldkkajfjd

The "I think we can save the hairloops" line is from @linnoya-writes thank you for that!! :>>

[the-apocalypse-is-upon-us]

are you guys seeing this shit

[uncanny-tranny]

It's always, like, mildly annoying when people see a het trans couple and go "all that work just to be straight?" like... one, you don't know if they're straight and two, trans people don't owe you a queer sexuality to "make up" for the fact we're trans. Transhet people aren't a subtype of trans people, they're members of the trans community, and the queer one if they so desire!

[krysmcscience]

The Lamb is malicious in a funny way and the Goat is funny in a malicious way. No, I will not elaborate.

Anyway, everyone give thanks to the Lamb for interrupting what was sure to be a very boring and patronizing PSA from their grouchy cat hubby. Truly, they are doing God's work. Granted, the Lamb canonically is God now, so, uh. Mostly they're just doing their own work.

Speaking of their grouchy cat hubby, yes this is absolutely still Narilamb, Narinder is 100% into his goofy-ass spouse always no matter what and we all know it, he just wasn't expecting his brand new adopted kid to share the same single goofy-ass brain cell as the Lamb. :)

[kraftykelpie]

Had an idea a while ago, and thought Obi-Wan fit the bill, His woefully wonderful sleep time (on shore leave as well!) was ruined by some type of antics, likely Ahsoka or Anakin shaped

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

*tries to organize my thoughts*

*remembers i'm not in school and therefore beholden to neither heaven nor hell nor any man's grading system*

*joyously shredding & tossing all my carefully arranged 3x5 mental notecards into the air like so much beige confetti. raising my arms in victory, cheering raucously until i accidentally inhale bits of homemade confetti*

(*coughing up itty bits of paper like a cat evicting a hairball with a firm understanding of tenants' rights*) wait wat happens next

[dykedvonte]

You ever just see a Mouthwashing take that makes you want to bang your head into a wall? I literally just saw someone claim Curly couldn't have been emotionally abused by Jimmy before the crash because he was in a higher position of power than Jimmy.

-Shrimp Anon

The mouthwashing fandom has shown me that people genuinely do believe that certain types of abuse are not as detrimental as other types especially when they deem those immune/resistant, ergo, believing one is objectively worse no matter how it affects the person nor the intersections of power, history and dynamics at play.

Get ready cause this is a yap session:

Cause like it's heavily implied that Curly and Jimmy's friendship was toxic and abusive, pointedly in the direction of how Jimmy uses Curly's belief/comfort in him. Curly wasn't forced to enable Jimmy but he was emotional and mentally on edge around him in almost every scene in some way. Mental and emotional abuse are not contingent on what positions you have at work. Yeah, he's Jimmy's boss but he was Jimmy's friend first and it's like getting into Psych discussion to talk about how social power tends to overshadow any perceived organizational power in the human mind. People are concerned about their jobs ofc but they tend to hang onto and put more value/investment into their personal relationships, hence why there tends to be laws and restrictions around mixing the two.

I always see the sentiments that "Curly is a grown ass man", "Curly is bigger than Jimmy", "Curly is Jimmy's boss", "He just needed a backbone" as criticisms of Curly and while I do agree that on the surface level all of these to be true and viable ways Curly could've taken more control of the situation, I often look at the parallels of Anya and Curly as victims of Jimmy pre/post crash.

The way Jimmy talks to Anya post crash is how he talked to Curly in the pre-crash segments. It's hard to pin-point mainly because we know he hates and wants nothing to do with Anya compared to his contrary but similarly handled obsessions with Curly. It's a weird sort of "honey-moon" effect of abuse Jimmy does in terms of emotional and mental victimization. He is always horrid to Anya, always talking down or questioning her abilities and thoughts in a situation, this of course includes the harassment and assault. However, he has a moment of attempted gentleness/conditioning when he question her about the mouthwash when she's contemplating drinking it at the table. The key difference is he has no personal investment in Jimmy outside wanting nothing to do with him, meaning there is no sort of romanticized version of him that he can condition her off of. He knows this, hence, why he always reverts to trying to make her to scared to oppose him.

This sort of give and take of "kindness" doesn't work on her because she knows he is just doing it to take more from her than whatever he could possibly give but it reflects even the "softer" scenes between him and Curly where he always rewords or rephrases Curly's sentiments and concerns to sound more shallow. He is feigning a deeper understanding by reworking Curly's emotions into something bad and needing to be hidden. Everything is laced with envy and resentment, an outburst just around the corner, I mean he even slams the table in the birthday party scene, a tactic in emotional manipulation to set the victim on edge and cloud their ability to respond. Even if Curly knows Jimmy won't get physical in that moment, the physical actions is intended to make him back down in the confrontation in case it does. This is something that is just not person specific. It ingrains itself into how you interact with the world and life and it shows in major and minor ways with Curly.

Post-crash, the abusive nature is more in tandem to the physical victimization Anya went through and the stripping of voice and autonomy we see take place. Like the parasite in HFIM, Jimmy speaks for Curly most of the time and puts words in his mouth, similarly to how he takes Anya's plans as his own. He very commonly, with the both of them mind you, supplements the worst aspects of himself into them; pettiness, selfishness, lack of understanding... And tries to cover himself with their best qualities; kindness, planning, initiative, etc...

These parallel are just to say that positional power has little to do with if a person can be abused and how it can even be flipped to further the abuse. There is no doubt that Curly could've picked up on Jimmy's envy of his position hence another reason he never confronted him as a Captain but as a friend as doing so would immediately put Jimmy in a space to be confrontational/combative.

I think the disdain some people have when they talk about the heavily implied if not implicitly stated emotional/mental abuse Curly experienced being Jimmy's friend is when treating it as an excuse to why he didn't do more. I can understand that completely because it is not an excuse to why he didn't do more but is a very real reason people in his position in these scenarios can experience whether in the context of a work or social environment. However, I also think the way people talk about it really does demonstrate a bigger problem when talking about abuse when somehow who is/was abused is either part of the issue or enabled it.

Harkening back to the sentiments about Curly's inaction regarding Jimmy, I think the exact phrases I used/have seen show how there is an inherent belief that it is easier to overpower the effects of emotional/mental abuse that go in tandem with the perception of Curly as someone who should be able to. There is not an age you suddenly stop being susceptible to abuse nor a set point or low where you realize how it has affected you. You don't suddenly know to stand up or put a face on to face your abuser nor admit that you inadvertently enabled them to subjugate someone else to the same treatment. Maybe it's my psych brain but their is this growing belief that direct action is somehow easy or always the best method with the game shows you instances where it is not always the case. In real life that rings true too. He should have done more, but it's not impossible to see why he struggled to find a way or didn't even if it makes us mad.

It's not easy to suddenly gain a "back-bone". You don't immediately want to resort to aggression, especially if it mirrors the type you were a victim to. You don't want to believe you allowed yourself to be treated this bad, let it get that bad or allowed something bad to happen to someone else. It is easy to be in denial, to retreat to your thoughts or make excuses to avoid the painful truth. It's frustrating but in a way we know is relatable. It why we both hate and love Curly for it. We know we'd be better, we think we'd be better, we like to think we wouldn't falter in the same ways but it's always easier to say that from the outside looking in. It's easy to see what he was doing wrong because we are seeing it, not him, but the game really does make you picture what you would do if this was your raw reality and it's why this debate about Curly seems so never ending/contradictory. We can all say what we'd do but bottom line is that's much different when you're in the moment with all the emotions and human feelings attached.

I personally think Mouthwashing tackles the themes of rape culture, enabling, toxic masculinity, types of abuse and patriarchy in ways that are meant to deconstruct the typical straightforward views we mostly have of these concepts and how little subtilities of them are just as, if not more, detrimental than the overt/obvious parts. The game deals with the idea of little details and bigger picture in a way to show that sometimes the bigger picture is not the issue but the little details that make it up. It's why I have a personal dislike of depictions of Jimmy as the typical horrible person who would of course do something like this because the game is about noticing the little warning signs, the foreshadowing and foresight.

It's why I dislike the typical discussion of "bro code" and "boys will be boys" for the game because the game makes a point to avoid the standard depictions of such. It is about the type of men who still enable despite not condoning, agreeing or even perpetuating harmful beliefs because they can't see the little details or the ways it seeps into their everyday. The severity is not obvious to them as it was not obvious to Curly, Swansea or even Daisuke the way it was to a woman like Anya. There are little details about Jimmy that should ring alarms but if you are too naive like Daisuke, too distant like Swansea or too conditioned like Curly, they are just off markers.

There is 100% more constructive/concise ways to say "Curly was a victim of Jimmy's abuse on an emotional and mental aspect that clouded his judgements and perceptions in the scenario" while also critiquing on the side of "Curly still had a responsibility to protect Anya as a crew mate and Captain that he failed to do due to biases and stigma's he failed to surpass" without the weird condemnation people give him about should've knowing better than to let himself be manipulated by a person he considered a close, if not family/best-friend and had his own reasons to trust initially. Also stop being weird about victims of abuse in general with this fandom, like sorry not everyone has a like social epiphany the moment someone's nasty to them. People are treating it like you immediately know when you are in a toxic relationship immediately or comprehend when a person is actively dangerous and either it's your fault for not knowing how to leave/cut them off or you deserve it. Like the hypocrisy of people believing how certain fans treat the story reflect their irl views but not their own is crazy.

End statement is: I honestly don't even know man, I've been writing this too long and just like no man on that ship was perfect or really helped Anya when it mattered and I feel like pitting them against each other in discussion on who did the least or most or how it was justified sucks cause in the end Anya always did the most and best thing for herself.

[bonefall]

Clear Sky threw his son in front of a fox?!

YES!! He SHOVED him in front of a fox! It's in fury from the fact Thunder refused to kill Frost. This entire section is VERY poorly paced and glances over it in two paragraphs, so most people don't fully register it.

Clear Sky dragged Thunder down off the stump and shoves him at it, blaming him for bringing the fox to camp with his loud disobedience.

He then leaves Thunder to fight this fox on his own. Leaf and Falling Feather jump in to help him of their own accord. Clear Sky then tries to praise him for being strong and Thunder tells him to shove off for the first and last time.

It's not the last baby of his he knowingly and consciously endangers to prove a point. In Moth Flight's Vision, he refuses to allow Acorn Fur to get medical help for Tiny Branch's fox-inflicted injuries until his condition worsened, bellowing, "SkyClan does NOT ask for help unless there's no choice." AND didn't allow her to complete her training after he caused Micah's death.

Clear Sky is a serial child abuser. He is willfully neglectful, emotionally abusive, and physically violent.

[arttsuka]

Stanley 'I once had to chew my way out of the trunk of a car' Pines

[invye]

We are interrupting our regularly scheduled program to bring you a snippet of a potential ZoSan undercover as a married couple fic:

(Timeline wise shoehorned in sometime shortly after the timeskip, before the Strawhats make it back into the news big time.)

(People need saving from a exclusive circle of nobility, but most of the Stawhats have already been seen around the island, so the lot ends up on Zoro and Sanji to try get in posing as a freshly married couple on their honeymoon to try get more information.)

[after coming up with the plan and Zoro and Sanji hesitantly agreeing]

Robin: "You seem a little stressed, Cook-san."

Sanji, chain-smoking his third cigarette: "I'm fine, I'll do this… I just… I don't like lying about something as significant as marriage, alright? I know it's stupid, but that's just how I am."

Luffy, perking up from where one might have thought he wasn't paying attention at all: "Oi, Sanji, promise to protect Zoro?"

Sanji, puffing out smoke: "Obviously, the Marimo would get lost within all of two seconds without me having his back."

Luffy: "Good! Now, Zoro--!"

Zoro, already rising to the bait: "Oi, if anyone is protecting anyone, I'll be guarding your lanky ass, shit cook!"

Luffy, laughing: "Alright, then as the captain of this ship I hereby pronounce you married!"

Zoro:

Sanji:

Robin: "Oh my, congratulations!"

Brook: bursts into song

Luffy, grinning at Sanji: "See, now it's not a lie anymore, so you don't have to feel bad about calling Zoro your husband."

Zoro: "LUFFY!!! YOU CAN'T JUST--"

Sanji: wordlessly walks off to get ready for the mission

Usopp: "Wait, wait!" runs after Sanji, grabbing his wrist

Sanji: stares

Usopp, sweating nervously: "Need your ring size…"

Sanji: staring intensifies

Usopp, scurrying off as quickly as humanly possible: "Wedding gift!"

Luffy, in the distance, still being yelled at by Zoro: "Too bad we don't have time to celebrate, I really want some wedding cake… :("

[snixx]

if hearing a girl criticize consumerism and beauty/makeup/anti-body hair culture or even just saying they don't like wearing makeup or shaving or performing femininity immediately makes you label them a pick-me maybe that's your own conscience or internalised guilt projecting just sayin'. maybe she isn't the one who thinks you're anti-feminist for wearing makeup (let's face it she most probably doesn't because most people fucking wear makeup) but your visceral defensiveness at someone just existing outside conventional beauty standards says more about you than it probably does about them

[idanit]

assorted Jeeves and Wooster sketches of various quality from the past six months, part 1

[queenlucythevaliant]

Okay but I do get really tired when people rag on Narnia's Biblical parallels for being too overt. Like, yeah dude. It's written for kids. Most kids don't do subtlety. I knew my Bible better than probably 95% of third graders, and yet my parents still had to clue me in. I've talked to people who grew up secular and didn't realize Narnia was Christian until well into adulthood. The Christian parallels in Narnia are at a pretty perfect level for most kids, and the fact that we as adults continue to get new spiritual meaning from it as we grow is a real testament to the depth of Jack's writing.

[archivewriter1ont]