#geoff... when you speak...

[twopoppies]

The article is in Spanish, but it's a very trustworthy source from Argentina. That Roger was a fucking leech, hope he rots in jail

https://www. infobae. com/sociedad/policiales/2024/11/08/pesos-argentinos-para-comprar-droga-negocios-en-comun-y-dias-libres-el-oscuro-control-de-rogelio-nores-sobre-liam-payne/

This is so fucking disturbing. I know fans have had a bad feeling about Roger for a while. It sounds like they weren’t wrong.

Today, Nores is charged with abandoning Liam Payne and killing him , as well as supplying and facilitating him with drugs, in a relationship that sources in the case describe as “almost Maradona-esque, a friend of the champion , like those who surrounded Diego at his worst .” To charge him, Madrea and his team analyzed 800 hours of footage from the CasaSur hotel and opened Liam’s phone. In addition, they took a large number of testimonies, including that of Liam’s father, Geoff Payne.

Liam's father said the same thing that the courts were able to confirm through the analysis of communications and the comparison of other testimonies: that Nores, after meeting Payne in Miami at the beginning of this year, became the force that dominated his life. If the Payne family wanted to know how the singer was, then they should contact Rogelio. He was not just another friend of Liam's, under any circumstances. Geoff Payne himself said it: "Roger" was always the intermediary. "He is better than ever," he would have told the family when asked.

And this explains the charge of abandonment of a person. It is not about the fact that the businessman did not come to the singer's aid, but about the long road that led to the CasaSur hotel.

The businessman would have become a sort of de facto manager . Although they did not have a specific contract in this regard, sources in the case say that Nores operated as an "investment advisor" and that they had business in common in view of Payne's possible return to the world stage. For this, the singer's recovery from his addiction to drugs and alcohol was key. He just had to be detoxified.

Nores accompanied Payne in a deep detoxification treatment in the United States. There, a psychiatrist prescribed sertraline, the antidepressant that was found in the toxicology test on the singer's body. The specialist said it clearly: if you mix alcohol and cocaine with sertraline, the result can be lethal.

Then, another treatment in Spain was carried out, which also failed. So they ended up in Argentina. Payne was put up in a prestigious five-star hotel that was used to hosting big rock stars. They kicked him out of there. They even visited a local psychiatrist, who testified in the file. After the five-star hotel, they both went to the Patagones polo club with the singer's last girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, where the singer was photographed wearing a helmet and heels on a horse. They spent a few days there. However, Payne quickly became nervous and left the place.

Thus, they arrived at the CasaSur hotel in Palermo on the Sunday before the death. Liam did not even have a bag. There, according to the testimonies and analysis that are part of the case of the prosecutor Madrea, Nores' control would have been much more evident, with alleged orders to the hotel staff to report each expense. Nores, this time, managed Payne's expenses , while receiving calls for each whiskey, champagne or tequila that the former One Direction member ordered, with physical money delivered at the reception. The evidence also speaks of "free days" when Liam could consume cocaine.

The day he died, precisely, was a “day off.”

Thus, Nores frequently returned to the hotel to top up the bill. Payne, meanwhile, insisted on the phone, asking for Argentine pesos to pay the dealers who offered him cocaine, with photos of the bags they offered him and the corresponding prices. The prosecution suspects that Nores had obtained cocaine for him himself, which led to the second charge against him.

Meanwhile, hotel cameras filmed Liam as he wandered the halls , drunk and with a distant look.

For the time being, Nores is free, with his passport handed over to the courts and a ban on leaving the country, while he awaits being summoned for questioning by Judge Laura Bruniard. Article 106 of the Criminal Code, which defines the crime of abandonment followed by death, speaks of “anyone who endangers the life or health of another, either by placing him or her in a situation of helplessness, or by abandoning to their fate a person who is incapable of taking care of himself or who must be maintained or cared for, or who the author himself has incapacitated .” Here, the alleged supply of narcotics plays a key role.

If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison. Given the amount of the sentence, the crime is not bailable.

[guster-animations]

The Japanese Version of Deltarune

about a week ago i decided to translate japanese deltarune because i was curious and bored. i found a lot of stuff that i haven’t heard anyone talk about before!

i only translated chapter 2 because i got to the cliffs and remembered that watching/playing chapter 1 over and over again is really boring to me. might do it when/if i finish writing the post.

uhhh a few warnings. i’m not fluent in japanese whatsoever (i’m like n4 level? i think?), and i might not explain this very well to people who don’t know anything about the language. if you’re confused about anything i say, just ask and i’ll explain it in better detail.

i got all of the gameplay from tsuwahasu’s playthroughs of chapter 2 (pacifist and weird route), so all of the screenshots will be from his vods. i picked his vod to watch somewhat randomly so i was very surprised when he not only got all the easter eggs/secrets on a blind playthrough besides the egg room, but also beat spamton neo in one try, god damn

also i’m not the first person to look at the jp version of deltarune. please look at these posts/videos if you want to see stuff that’s already known in better detail:

skellfamily (light/dark world writing, characters’ pronouns and speech patterns) | suzyundertale (ch2 character names, some jokes) suzyundertale again (the gonermaker sequence) | duxarcana and halfbreadchaos (character in the code) | kazarinn (comments from the translators)

reblogs highly appreciated—this took a ton of time!!!

NOW.

LET US BEGIN.

first things first. the gonermaker sequence is one of the most well-known differences in the japanese language among lore fanatics like myself.

in japanese, the first character speaking to you (gaster/Geoff) speaks in kanji (normal) and katakana instead of hiragana (not normal, incredibly strange sounding). the character who hijacks the gonermaker at the end speaks differently, with kanji and hiragana (normal). as suzyundertale mentions in their post, the patterns are extremely similar to a certain fallen child from the end of the undertale genocide route.

another well-known lore Thing in the japanese version is that the hidden “scrapped” lines (AKA the person trapped in the code) use very feminine and childlike speaking mannerisms. this makes it very likely that the person is dess holiday

i’m not going to be going over much personal pronoun stuff, because other people have already covered most of that, though i haven’t seen one thing mentioned by anyone else:

seam uses the pronoun “atashi” (あたし), which is normally a very girly pronoun but in this case it’s meant to make them seem old and wise, since it was a more common pronoun in olden times. their other mannerisms are gender neutral and not feminine, but their name is localized to “nui” (ヌイ)— the word for “seam” in japanese, as well as an actual feminine given name.

does the use of “atashi” combined with having a fem name confirm that they are female? i’m 95% sure the answer is no. do those two things lead native japanese speakers to believe that they are female? i have no idea.

light and dark world

skellfamily mentioned all of this in the post i linked, but i have something small to add

undertale uses mainly hiragana in its text for the japanese version, with some small exceptions for when the fourth wall is broken. this is referencing earthbound, which also did this. this carries over to the light world of deltarune, but kanji is used liberally in the dark world. this is explained by toby fox wanting the light world to make the player think deltarune would be like undertale.

that’s all

small jokes and stuff in the localization

the “librarby” misspelling joke carries over, with it being named “toshonka” (the japanese word for library is “toshokan”).

the AGREE2ALL puzzle was changed to say “YEEES20!!”. this can be read as “yes ni maru” (with the number 2 being read as “ni” in jp and “maru” being the word for a circle), meaning “yes to all” just like in english!

the “apple” keyboard puzzle still says “apple” though ralsei mentions that apple means “ringo” (the japanese word for apple) if you talk to him for a hint.

funnily enough, this joke was kept as is! (“kris, type as i say. f…” “…un!”)

the tasque’s battle lines in english are binary codes, with “me” being 0 and “ow” being 1. this is similar in jp. “nyan” is the equivalent of “meow” in that language, so “ny”=0 and “an”=1. cute!

the “bosom” joke is about the same, if anyone was curious

“breasts / annihilation”

“b…breast?”

“it means tity”

probably my favorite joke in the entire japanese version: in english, before the berdly fight on the roller coaster, he incorrectly refers to lightners as “Light Nerds” . in japanese this is changed to make him use ateji (a combination of kanji that doesn’t mean anything but sounds like an already existing word with their combined readings), calling the lightners 雷斗奈悪 (raitonaa, phonetically similar to the transliteration raitonā which the translation uses). it has the exact same effect (of berdly trying to sound smart but actually being very incorrect), but it’s localized in an outstanding way

“you are filled with the power of not knowing what sugarplums are” is changed to “you are filled with the power of not knowing what christmas pudding is”.

when berdly incorrectly calls susie “susan”, she says “who’s susan?” instead of “my name isn’t susan”. japanese people likely don’t know that “susie” is usually short for “susan”, so it makes sense for her to be even more confused in this version.

the spelling contest in berdly’s flashback is still an english spelling contest, with berdly specifying that it’s english.

instead of saying “susie… a real dragon blazers reference?!” when susie references dragon blazers 2, berdly says, “susie… you’re… a serious dragon blazers player…?!”

on that topic, dragon blazers is instead called dragon blader in japanese. was it called that the whole time? am i misremembering? i legitimately don’t know

the ice-e keysmash puzzle is changed so that you can type it out in japanese as すふぎおろてにぺけなも. it still does not mean anything.

right after susie referenced godzilla with the susiezilla line on the ferris wheel, she references ANOTHER tokusatsu. i think. here (while about to fall on ralsei) she says “ore, sanjou!!!!” (i arrive!), which is a famous catchphrase from kamen rider den-o. i’m like 85% sure it was an intentional reference. den-o is one of my favorite rider shows so this is amazing to me

and lastly. the name of minecrap is changed to マインクシャット (mainkushatto), which seems to be a play on some word plus “minecraft” like in english. i’m not sure what the wordplay is. i’ll get back to you on this

lore-y important stuff

about dess

in japanese, the december typing puzzle still spells out “december” in english.

noelle refers to dess as “onee-chan” (older sis)— it’s common for japanese people to refer to their older siblings like this, and it would be extremely weird if noelle called her “dess”. she could have called her “dess-neechan” or some variation of that, but i highly doubt that the name “dess” is being obscured, especially because “dess” transliterated would sound extremely close, if not alike to “desu” as well as the transliteration of “death”.

the knight

(i took the screenshot and forgot to turn auto captions off, sorry)

this line from a swatchling says something like “it captures the moment where the ‘knight’ creates a ‘fountain’ themself, with their own hands”, but the word for “themself” (みずから/mizukara) is written in hiragana, and “mizukara” could also technically be read as “from water”. was this a deliberate water-darkness parallel? i have no idea.

speaking of water!

the roaring knight is referred to as “咆哮の騎士” (houkou no kishi), the knight of the roaring. the word for the roaring itself, 咆哮, means roar or scream. which eliminates the alternate meaning of roaring (also being possibly defined as the sound of rushing water), but that probably doesn’t solidify “roaring” as solely meaning that. there are a lot of terms in undertale that had multiple meanings, but had to be changed to have only one in the japanese localization. “roaring” might be similar to those instances.

angel

spamton calls noelle an angel just like in english, referring to her as “angel-chan”. if there’s somehow anyone out there that didn’t think that line was important, i am here to prove you wrong!!!

more interesting:

this is the line where noelle says that if this was a dream, she would grow wings and fly away— but in this version, she says “big angel wings” specifically. very interesting!

the two (2) other notable changes in weird route

the infamous “you whispered noelle’s name…” line is slightly different. slightly.

the “kris called for help” lines still say that kris is the one doing it, but this one does not say the subject at all. this is normal for japanese, regardless, it’s still very interesting that it doesn’t say “you”. it is still differentiated from the “kris” lines, but not specifically referring to you (the player).

the other difference is so minor that i’m not even sure what it is or if it’s different from the english version.

translation

EVEN IF YOU [Shout] AT THE [Receiver]

YOUR [Voice] WILL EVENTUALLY WITHER

YOUR [Voice]

THEIR [Voice]

AND YOU WILL realize you’re alone.

i do not know who “THEY” is that spamton’s referring to. the term he uses is gender-neutral and singular. is he talking about the player? idfk probably not

miscellaneous spamton-related stuff

spamton’s speech patterns are entirely different in the japanese translation, but they get the same message across. they include:

switching between formal and informal language

using weird mixtures of hiragana, katakana, english letters and kanji

using katakana re (レ) instead of hiragana shi (し)

cutting off words

random spacing

and occasionally using “die” and “death” as homophones for “dai” and “desu”

it’s so wacky and unnerving and strange, i love it :D

other spamton lore bits:

mike’s name is the same (マイク maiku). i somehow forgot to translate the mike-related dialogue. i will get back to you all if there’s anything of note.

the word for “garbage noise” is 雑音, with about the same meaning. unsurprisingly, the same word (the exact same phrase, in fact) is used for both the addison’s line and the gaster phone call line.

the last thing (i think)

in the roaring cutscene, the japanese word for “chaos” is said (in the “all will be plunged into chaos” line), but then says the transliterated version of the word (カオス) in parentheses. tsuwahasu noted that it’s “keyword-like” in the playthrough i watched. is this important? i have no idea

i’m sure there are things that i missed here, so (again) if you want to know about something, don’t be afraid to ask!! the jp version of deltarune should be looked at a lot more—not just for the lesser-known lore tidbits, but also for the cool stuff that was changed to fit the language. it’s a really cool localization!

[mamawasatesttube]

sometimes i see the sentiment of "i don't understand how you can call a comic ooc when there are so many writers who have written so many characters differently!! did everyone just pick a single One True Comic or something??" and like... i get where you're coming from, in that there are a lot of comics and it can feel overwhelming, but also there is actually an answer to this, generally speaking.

if you read a lot of a given character's appearances, you will find that overall, they have certain given traits that the majority of writers agree upon. this is true even of characters with a lot of appearances - for example, i've read almost 1000 issues of superman comics (which is nowhere near all superman comics, certainly, but is a fair chunk!) and i can tell you that i found brian azzarello's run fairly out of character because superman never was much of a religious man in just about all other runs, and him going to a priest for some kind of informal confession stuck out like a sore thumb. or that marv wolfman's superman felt out of character because of all the damn racism, which was definitely just marv wolfman being racist and using superman as a mouthpiece. like, if you read enough you WILL be able to pick up on patterns of what a character generally is like.

this gets even easier for characters with fewer appearances and less cultural icon status (relatively speaking). you can even take into account things like the character's original run and how their creator wrote them, vs how others picked up after the creator left. for example, i can easily call geoff johns's writing of superboy in teen titans (2003) gratingly ooc because it directly contradicts years of established superboy characterization from his origin story and from his solo run, which was in part penned by his original creator. when superboy (1994) establishes over and over that superboy feels strongly about clones being their own people regardless of their origins and dna, you can safely say that a later writer coming in and making him weirdly into pseudoeugenics is insane and, yes, out of character.

like... it's not so much that there's ~one true run~ or something that everyone agrees upon. it's just the concept of pattern recognition. you just gotta keep reading man!

[intervex]

What Pride Flags Mean, Part 1: Gender and Attraction

Welcome to the latest installment of my autistic hyperfixation on flags! I wanted to figure out a common language of Colour X means Thing Y. Like how pink is consistently used for feminine.

Having a common language for flag meanings matters because it improves cognitive accessibility of flags. ♿️💙

But I didn't want to be prescriptive about what colours should mean what. Just because I think Thing X should go with Colour Y doesn't mean everybody else would.

So this turned into a descriptive, empirical project. I gathered a data set of 2060 pride flag colour choices to figure out what are the most common colour-meaning combinations. Some of the results:

And here are the abstract modifiers: these are modifiers that were generally shared between the genders and the attractions. For example, black is used to indicate having no gender as well as having no attraction.

Click here for tables with okLCH values, hex values, definitions, and notes - I've put a more detailed write-up on my Wikimedia Commons userpage. (Mediawiki supports sortable tables and Tumblr does not.)

METHODS-AT-A-GLANCE

To make the figures above, I assembled a data set of pride flag colours. It contains 2060 colour choices from 624 pride flags, representing 1587 unique colours. Click here for a detailed description of how I gathered and tagged the pride flag colours and tagged them.

For each tag, I converted every colour to okLCH colour space and computed a median colour. OkLCH colour space is an alternative to RGB/hex and HSL/HSV. Unlike RGB/hex and HSL/HSV, okLCH is a perceptual colour space, meaning that it is actually based on human colour perception. 🌈

In okLCH space, a colour has three values:

- Lightness (0-100%): how light the colour is. 100% is pure white.

- Chroma (0-0.37+): how vibrant the colour is. 0 is monochromatic. 0.37 is currently the most vibrant things can get with current computer monitor technologies. But as computer monitor technologies improve to allow for even more vibrant colours, higher chroma values will be unlocked.

- Hue (0-360°): where on the colour wheel the colour goes - 0° is pink and 180° is teal, and colours are actually 180° opposite from their perceptual complements.

The important thing to know is that okLCH Hue is not the same Hue from HSV/HSL - the values are different! (HSL and HSV are a hot mess and do not align with human colour perception!)

You can learn more about okLCH through my little write up, which was heavily influenced by these helpful articles by Geoff Graham, Lea Verou, and Keith J Grant.

You can play with an okLCH colour picker and converter at oklch.com

🌈

MORE RESULTS: COLOUR DISTRIBUTIONS

Back when I started tagging my data, I divided my data into five main chunks: Gender qualities (e.g. masculine, androgynous), Attraction (e.g. platonic, sexual), Values (e.g. community, joy), Disability (e.g. Deaf, blind), and Other.

I'll talk about Disability and Values in future posts! But for an alternate view of the data, here are the full distributions of the colours that were placed in each tag.

They come in three parts: tags I created for Gender, tags for Attraction, and tags from Other. The abstract modifiers are spread between the first two, though their contents transcend Gender and Attraction.

Some distributions have a lot more variance within them than others. Generally speaking, major attraction types tended to have the least variance: sensual attraction is really consistently orange, platonic is really consistently yellow, etc.

Variance and size do not correlate. Many of the smaller tags are quite internally consistent. I don't have a ton of tags in "current gender" but they're all the same dark purple. Xenine/xenogender has a whole bunch of entries, and there's a really big spread from blue to yellow.

Some tags, like intersex as well as kink/fetish show there are a small number of different colours that are very consistently used. Whereas other tags like masculine show a very smooth range - in this case from cyan to purple.

Overall I'm pretty satisfied with how things wound up! 🥳 It makes sense to me that an umbrella term like xenogender would have a lot of variance. What honestly makes me happiest is just how many tags wound up 180 or 90 degrees from their opposites/complements. 🤩

Not everything lined up nicely (the opposite of drag is .... neuroqueer? awkward.) 🤨 Some things lined up in hilarious ways, like how initially I had the opposite of kink/fetish being Christian (amazing.)

But as a whole, there's a lot of structure and logic to where things landed! I hope this makes sense for other people and can help inform both flag making as well as flag interpreting (e.g. writing alt-text for existing flags). 🌈

I'm hoping to post the Disability and Values analyses in the coming days! If you want to learn more, my detailed notes along with tables etc are over on my Wikimedia Commons userspace. 💜

Everything here is Creative Commons Sharealike 4.0, which means you're free to reuse and build on my visualizations, tables, etc. Enjoy!

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Swearing & Taboo Expressions

Swear words and taboo words can intensify what is said, but they can shock or give offence.

Swearing and the use of taboo words and expressions is quite common in speaking.

We often hear and use it both in private and in public settings and in films, on television and on the radio.

The use of taboo expressions suggests that speakers have, or wish to have, a close personal relationship with others.

We also use taboo expressions and swear words when we express strong feelings, or when we wish to threaten or to be unpleasant to others.

It is sometimes difficult for learners of a language to know how strong such expressions are and how to use them in an appropriate way. Learners are advised against using all such expressions.

Most swearing and most uses of taboo expressions in English refer to religion or to parts of the body and bodily processes, especially those associated with sexual activity or with using the toilet.

In English, swearing which involves ‘religious’ taboo expressions is likely to be weaker than swearing that involves ‘parts of the body’ taboo expressions.

The most common taboo expressions that involve ‘parts of the body’ are fuck (to have sexual intercourse – the word is used both as a noun and as a verb) and shit (bodily excrement – the word is used both as a noun and as an adjective).

When we swear, we commonly use interjections. These can be single words or short phrases or clauses.

We most commonly use them to express strong feelings, especially feelings of anger.

Examples

The strength of the words and expressions here is marked in stars.

A very strong expression has five stars (*****) and a less strong expression has one star (*).

People have different views about which expressions are stronger than others.

Taboo expressions involving religion

Damn*! She’s borrowed my camera without telling me.

Oh bloody hell**! Just leave me alone, will you.

Christ***! Why didn’t you tell us how much the new brakes were going to cost!!

Taboo expressions involving parts of the body

Shit****! I’ve forgotten to phone Geoff.

Oh fuck it*****! I can’t find my phone.

We sometimes use wh-exclamatives with taboo words:

Why the hell* is he driving so fast!

What the fuck***** has she done to my laptop!

You will find the meanings of most taboo expressions in a good learner’s dictionary.

Taboo intensifiers

Taboo expressions are very common as intensifying adverbs or adjectives:

Where’s the bloody** key?

He’s fucking***** dangerous. He needs to get proper skis.

Writing Notes & References

[gardenschedule]

John not meaning what he says

Link to masterpost of quote compilations

You know, we all say a lot of things when we don’t know what we’re talking about. I’m probably doing it now, I don’t know what I say. You see, everybody takes you up on the words you said, and I’m just a guy that people ask all about things, and I blab off and some of it makes sense and some of it is bullshit and some of it’s lies and some of it is — God knows what I’m saying. I don’t know what I said about Maharishi, all I know is what we said about Apple, which was worse.

John Lennon: The Rolling Stone Interview, Part One

“It’s sort of complicated but sometimes you say things, but it’s not really what you meant to say. If I say something to you and you hear it different from what I’ve said it, and you answer back and we’re not really getting down to it. I’m really talking like that you know. Like somebody says ‘do you want ice cream?’ and I’ll say no, and actually I meant yes. You find yourself saying the opposite of what you mean. This happens to me quite a lot. I speak a lot, but what I say is not always what I mean.“

John Lennon, 1973.

‘I was told recently by Yoko that one of the things that hurt John over the years was me going off and doing The Family Way,’ Paul says. The filmmaking Boulting brothers had approached him via George Martin. ‘I thought this was a great opportunity. We were all free to do stuff outside the Beatles and we’d each done various little things.’ When he mentioned it to John, Paul said, ‘He would have had his suit of armour on and said: “No, I don’t mind.”

Paul McCartney, c/o Ray Coleman, McCartney: Yesterday and Today. (1995)

But by the time I arrived, an agitated John was deeply involved indeed. More specifically, he was having a row with Paul and George Martin. “We’ve already done the concept album,” he argued, presumably referring to Pepper. “Why do we need to do another one?” “Look, John, we’re just trying to think symphonically,” George replied. “We’re trying to create a complete work out of song fragments.” John was derisive at first, saying, “You’re taking yourselves too seriously,” but when Paul invited him to contribute some compositions of his own to the medley, he seemed to capitulate. “Well, I might have one or two that could fit,” he said sheepishly. I exchanged glances with Paul. I’m sure we were both thinking the same thing: He’s just been waiting to be asked.

Here, There and Everywhere - Geoff Emerick, Howard Massey

SHEFF: But you didn’t compose your stuff separately, as other accounts have said? JOHN: No, no, no. I said that, but I was lying. [Laughs.] By the time I said that, we were so sick of this idea of writing and singing together, especially me, that I started this thing about, “We never wrote together, we were never in the same room.” Which wasn’t true. We wrote a lot of stuff together, one-on-one, eyeball to eyeball.

John Lennon, interview w/ David Sheff for Playboy. (September, 1980)

PLAYBOY: "When you talk about working together on a single lyric like "We Can Work It Out,' it suggests that you and Paul worked a lot more closely than you've admitted in the past. Haven't you said that you wrote most of your songs separately, despite putting both of your names on them?" LENNON: "Yeah, I was lying. (laughs) It was when I felt resentful, so I felt that we did everything apart. But, actually, a lot of the songs we did eyeball to eyeball."

John Lennon, 1980

“No, no, no,” he answered and he meant it. “I’m going to be an ex-Beatle for the rest of my life so I might as well enjoy it, and I’m just getting around to being able to stand back and see what happened. A couple of years ago I might have given everybody the impression I hate it all, but that was then. I was talking when I was straight out of therapy and I’d been mentally stripped bare and I just wanted to shoot my mouth off to clear it all away. Now it’s different. “When I slagged off the Beatle thing in the papers, it was like divorce pangs, and me being me it was blast this and fuck that, and it was just like the old days in the Melody Maker, you know, ‘Lennon Blasts Hollies’ on the back page. You know, I’ve always had a bit of a mouth and I’ve got to live up to it. Daily Mirror: ‘Lennon beats up local DJ at Paul’s 21st birthday party’. Then we had that fight Paul and me had through the Melody Maker, but it was a period I had to go through.

John Lennon, interview w/ Ray Coleman for Melody Maker: Lennon – a night in the life. (September 14th, 1974)

GEORGE: I remember the day when John did an interview with a certain magazine and said certain things, and then I remember the day when he disagreed with what he’d said, but the man who interviewed him denied him the right to change his mind and, even though it was two and a half years, later still went ahead and published something which John said he no longer agreed with himself on. Which means the dream was over, yet certain people wouldn’t allow him to have his dream... over. Nudge nudge wink wink, say no more. [inaudible] JOHN: In other words, imagine if somebody or if you accidentally bang your head and you shout, “Ow!” – that’s the end of it. [self-conscious; laughs] Right? GEORGE: And he said that too. JOHN: I mean, it doesn’t go on for the next five years, right? And we all did that.

December 21st, 1974 (New York)

INT: It seem that you did minimize a little bit, what the, what the effect was on the, value and lifestyle and all that. You said that there was almost nothing left of Beatles. JOHN: Well I get bitter too, you know. And uh, also it was always the insistence that the Beatles led something, you know. And if anything they were figureheads, you know. And, I put it more succinctly later on when I thought about it. When I said those statements A) I was bitter and upset; emotionally upset cause we just split up, you know. I call it a divorce right. But when I think about it, obviously…you know, I can change my mind.

John interviewed by Jean-François Vallée in April 1975.

Well, you see with people like me and yourself, if you're in a certain mood and reporters are sort of asking questions which are angled to get an answer that they need to sell their paper and you're in a certain mood, you'll say certain things to them. And then people bring it back five years later: ‘So you said this, did ya?’ But you've forgotten all about it. You've changed your mood, it's a different day, it's a different year, you know, and you're feeling entirely different. So you're always held up to what you've said before. And half the time you don't know what you're talking about when you're talking to reporters.” “It's like if everybody's words were recorded as they were saying it, there's lots of things you say that either turn out to be silly or you didn't mean it or it's spur-of-the-moment or you meant it or you had foresight or didn't. And it varies, but when people bring it back, you've forgotten all about it. ‘I don't know what you're talking about.’”

The Dick Cavett Show, recorded September 8, 1971

“So I’m not answerable to everything I said to Hunter Davies. There’s a few bits in there that I said how I felt that day. But do I have to stand by that for the rest of me life because it’s in print?”

...

“It’s not draggy tracks. It’s like draggy tracks as opposed to just completely enjoying it. And that’s the job I’ve chosen to do, is to record and write songs… (sic) If I’m feeling draggy… (sic) I mean, when I say I wrote ‘Good Morning Good Morning’ or something like that, and I didn’t like it, and I didn’t enjoy it, I didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it as a whole; it was a job of work. But I got enjoyment from doing it. But you can’t pin people like me down on every literal thing that’s said in print like that.”

Maurice Hindle & Friends, December 2, 1968

“People are going to be writing about us for the rest of our lives probably, and after we’re dead, so I tend to either confuse the issue so much they never knew what was going on or to try to keep shoving out bits and pieces of what happened, and how the different things happened as a result of this or that or how I was influenced or not influenced. So whoever is bothered to be looking at it in the future, if they ever do… (sic) But people that really know will sort that out… (sic) They’ll know what was going on with it, and they won’t have to go through a million, million things, y’know? Just like that.”

Maurice Hindle & Friends, December 2, 1968

Underground journalist Felix Dennis watched the session. ‘I remember Ringo getting more and more upset by this… I have a clear memory of him saying, “That’s enough, John.”’ Lennon and Ono competed to come up with the most insulting lines, Dennis said. ‘Some of it was absolutely puerile. Thank God a lot of it never actually got recorded because it was highly, highly personal, like a bunch of schoolboys standing in the lavatory making scatological jokes.’ ‘John would forgive himself, and expect Paul to forgive him,’ Derek Taylor recalled.

Peter Doggett, You Never Give Me Your Money: The Battle for the Soul of the Beatles. (2009)

I went through a period of trying to encourage Paul by writing and saying things that I thought would spur him on. But I think they were misunderstood. That's how "How Do You Sleep?" (on the "Imagine" album) was intended. Although I suppose it was a bit hard on him.

John Lennon Talks To Ray Connolly May 18th 1972 Radio Times

“At the moment he is cut off from the three of us. The last time I saw him was in December.” Asked whether he thought John Lennon’s recent unkind references to Paul on his “Imagine” album, had deepened the rift, George replied: “Maybe John felt like that about Paul at the time he was writing the song, but he doesn’t feel like that all the time. The song doesn’t represent what he really feels. It’s just John – people don’t really understand. “I think John’s record is great – though that track about Paul is a bit hard. But it’s only something felt at the time . . . ”

George Harrison, interviewed by Mike Hennessey for Record Mirror (October 16, 1971)

JOHN: (smiles) You know, I wasn’t really feeling that vicious at the time. But I was using my resentment toward Paul to create a song, let’s put it that way. He saw that it pointedly refers to him, and people kept hounding him about it. But, you know, there were a few digs on his album before mine. He’s so obscure other people didn’t notice them, but I heard them. I thought, Well, I’m not obscure, I just get right down to the nitty-gritty. So he’d done it his way and I did it mine. But as to the line you quoted, yeah, I think Paul died creatively, in a way.

John’s Playboy interview as published in the magazine’s January 1981 issue

He turned to me and told me that he had been equally vicious about Paul during the same period and that Paul had got it right when he had declared that the only person John was hurting with his vitriolic behavior was himself. It was not exactly an apology, more like an explanation.

Glyn Johns, Sound Man: A Life Recording Hits with the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Eric Clapton, the Faces… (2014)

“I have to ask you, what was all that stuff in the telegraph about?... And he’s gone oh yeah, look, speak to Paul about that, I wasn’t in a good place mentally at the time. Just speak to Paul about it…. I thought it was a real cop out because he had hurt me, he’d said something unfair, and rather than just apologise, what he basically said was I’ve apologised to Paul, and Paul’s accepted my apology for for my behaviour in that period, the immediate aftermath of the Beatles, and therefore speak to him and he will explain to you why you should forgive me”.

I am the EggPod guest Sam Delaney talking about a Get Back screening Q&A with Glynn Johns

“I’m trying to be mad at you, but you’re so nice, it isn’t easy,” Glyn replied. Then he explained that he had been upset by John’s comments about him in the “Lennon Remembers” interviews. John had said that Let It Be, which had been re-mixed by Glyn, had wound up sounding awful, and Glyn, a true professional, had been very offended by John’s comments. John did not remember saying it at all and he was very embarrassed. He explained, “I had just done primal therapy. I was just lettin’ off steam. That interview was just a lot of anger.” Glyn stared at John. John’s words had hurt him, and he had never expected that John would not remember what he had said, nor had he perceived that the comments would be dismissed as “just lettin’ off steam.” Like everyone else, he believed everything the public John said and took him very seriously. John repeatedly apologised to Glyn, and eventually the matter was dropped.

Loving John

“John’s most influential interviews, interviews which people took as gospel truth, were for John occasions to blow off steam and then to forget what he had said.”

May Pang, The Lost Weekend

At the time, we at Apple weren’t feeling good anyway, because Apple had failed; and here was one of our friends telling everyone who reads Rolling Stone that we were bastards. In the end we had to say, ‘Well, we’re not.’ John later retracted some of it, and we became friends again. And I forgave him. He would forget he’d said it, and expect to be forgiven, as he always was.

Derek Taylor, interview w/ Peter Doggett for Record Collector. (August, 1988)

John had gone through a tremendous upheaval in his private life, and he was a very odd person at times; he wasn’t at all himself. There was the famous interview he did for Rolling Stone, which has been reprinted many times, in which he says many unfair and untrue things, slagged everybody off, including me. I took him to task over it later on, asking him, “Why did you say all those things? It wasn’t very nice.” He said, “Oh, I was just stoned out of my head.” That was his only apology, really. Unfortunately, that has become history now; it’s accepted as the Bible.”

George Martin, interview w/ Howard Massey for Musician. (February, 1999)

“If you look at interviews and stuff with John, from around about that time he was in Imagine [documentary] he kind of admits that he’s having problems with himself. So, well, the first thing you do when you’re having problems with yourself is you bitch about someone else. And the closest person was me…He had a real go at me. I personally think it was ‘cause he was trying to clear the decks for Yoko. He’s got a new love, he’s trying to say to her, “Look, baby, I love you. I hate those guys.” And I think—you also have to remember John was going through a lot of problems. And you know, as they say, people, when they’re going through problems, come out with that kind of stuff. You know that, we all know that. When you’re in a bad mood, the first thing you do is badmouth somebody else. You don’t want to badmouth yourself…Some of the times, he was having other sorts of problems…So—like most of what John said, I take it with a pinch of salt. I love him still. I don’t care what he said, you know. Even if he badmouths me, I still know that he was a great guy, and that he loved me.”

Paul McCartney

PLAYBOY: In his Playboy Interview, John said that was a song he didn't like and never could have written.

PAUL: Who knows what John liked? You know, John would say he didn't like one thing one minute and the next he might like it. I don't really know what he liked or didn't like, you know! It would depend on what mood he was in on a given day, really, what he would like.... I don't care; I liked it!

Paul McCartney: The Complete Playboy Interview, 1984 (thanks @tavolgisvist for the quote!)

[ahyperactivehero]

i asked on election night if anyone wanted a little drabble to help with the stress, and unfortunately it has taken me a little longer than i would like to get them out!

@det-agency: please write Edwin getting turned into an orb for the first time pre-canon and Charles freaking out i think itd be so fun

(fun fact, this is my first orb fic! i've wanted to write one for a minute, but this is the first that i've actually sat down and wrote out!)

Drabble 5 (Orb Fic)

London, 1991

Getting chased by a vengeful ghost was not exactly what Charles had planned for when they’d set off to speak to their client, but he supposed that’s what you get being a ghost detective.

Edwin sprinted ahead of him, his long legs easily giving him the speed that he needed to leave their client in the dust. 

“Who woulda thought our client was the guilty one?” Charles yelled out to Edwin, who glanced over his shoulder. 

“It is certainly a twist,” Edwin said. He suddenly veered off to the right, racing towards the bedroom mirror they had come through earlier. If they could get there, they could head back to their newly established office and regroup. They’d certainly need to think of a better plan now that their client had turned on them and absolutely wasted their original suspect.

Edwin reached the mirror, his hand outstretched as he concentrated on getting them back to the office. Charles turned around, his hands immediately finding comfort in his cricket bat. If that bastard even thought about getting close to them he’d smash him.

“Come on,” he heard Edwin mutter under his breath. “Find it, find it, find it.”

Mirror travel was something Charles had yet to master, but Edwin was aces at it. It would probably only take him a second before–

A choked, gasping sound came from behind him, followed by the tell-tale sound of someone stepping through a mirror. He spun around, worried for a moment that Edwin might have fallen through the mirror and been separated from him, when he felt his soul go cold.

Their client, Geoff Mann, stepped from the mirror. His hand was already through, and in his fist was an iron knife.

An iron knife covered in ghostly blood.

“Edwin!” Charles yelled, rushing forward just as Edwin staggered backwards.

His hands were on his throat, blood seeping through his fingers. Charles felt panic like he never had before. Iron hurt ghosts, but could it kill them? Was stabbing enough to obliterate a ghost? Maybe not, but what about cutting their throat?

Edwin fell straight into his arms, and Charles would have dropped his cricket bat if it weren’t for the vengeful ghost of their client standing over them. Blood dripped off of the knife and pooled on the carpet and it seemed wrong that it wouldn’t actually stain it. Not that Charles wanted anything to be stained with his best friend’s blood, it just seemed wrong that it wouldn’t.

“Hold on,” he said in what he hoped was his most reassuring voice. Gently, and without looking away from Geoff, he slid Edwin to the floor. He ignored his hand dragging down Charles’s arm, begging him to stay– to not leave him alone.

This would only take a moment. Besides, he needed to take care of the threat before he tended to Edwin.

“You fucked up,” Charles said, twirling his bat. Geoff didn’t even have the decency to look the least bit frightened. 

“You’re gonna make me move on,” Geoff said. “And I ain’t doin’ it.”

They weren’t. That’s not what their Agency did. They couldn’t force someone to move on if they didn’t want to. It wasn’t even what Geoff had originally hired them for!

But none of that mattered now. Not when Edwin was behind him, gasping and potentially dying. 

(He wasn’t even sure what dying would mean for a ghost. Would he go back to Hell? Disappear?)

He didn’t even give him a chance to respond. He swung his bat against his arm, almost enjoying the way it cracked and forced him to drop his knife.

Charles wasn’t a violent person, no matter how much he feared being like his father. But the satisfaction he got from seeing that man drop to his knees in pain after what he’d done to Edwin? Well, he might need to reflect on that.

The urge to keep going was strong– after all, what was to stop him from coming after them later? – but he forced himself to stop. 

“If anything happens to him,” Charles warned, holding out his bat against the other man’s head. “I’m comin’ back.”

Quicker than the other man could react, he bent down and picked up his knife and turned back to get Edwin. 

He laid there, air and blood gurgling as he tried to keep his wound closed. At some point his eyes had screwed shut, like that might help block out the pain. They sprang open at the first sign of Charles’s touch, that faint bit of panic he’d seen when something reminded him of Hell shooting across his face before flattening out into something more manageable.

“Let's go,” Charles said. He put his hands under his armpits, intending to haul Edwin up if he had to, but a flash of light overwhelmed his vision and Edwin disappeared.

“Edwin!” he yelled and looked from hand to hand as if he might have somehow been hiding there. 

A small orb, just a bit bigger than a cricket ball, floated there in front of him. There was no trace of Edwin, just the small, pulsing yellow orb.

“Edwin?” he asked, unable to keep the disbelief out of his voice.

The orb bobbed for a moment, as if it were answering. The yellow seemed to glow brighter for a second before dimming until it was a faded, off-white color. 

Forget it. Charles had no clue what was going on, but he didn’t have time for this. He snatched Edwin up and booked it through the mirror,  no destination in mind– only intent on getting them as far away as possible.

It took several tries before he got back to the office, and by then his nonexistent heartbeat had slowed down to something far more bearable. Without even thinking he tossed his bag and bat to the floor and uncovered the ball of light he’d been keeping safe in his hands.

There was an unexpected feeling to it, not quite a weight but certainly a warmth. It reminded him of when he was alive and he’d stick his cold finger next to a heater or run them under warm water once they’d gone numb.

It was the first time he’d felt warmth since he died.

He held the orb closer to his face and chest for inspection. It was perfectly round, the edges of it reminding him of an impossible mix of glass and a cloud. It wasn’t solid, but he also couldn’t put his hand through it, even if he tried.

“Edwin?” he asked again. Could this really be Edwin? What had that ghost done to him?

The orb pulsed, yellow light coming back to it before fading again into that cool, white light.

So it really must be Edwin. 

He glanced over at Edwin’s slowly growing collection of books and wondered if there was something about this in one of them. The subject of orbs had never come up before, but then again, neither one of them had ever been as hurt as Edwin was before. 

Was this what happened when something hurt them? How badly did they need to be hurt in order for it to happen? 

“Hey,” Charles said as he ran his hand over the orb. “Don’t worry, I’ve gotcha.”

There was another pulse. The orb seemed to hover above his hands for a moment before gravity seemed to take over it and it dropped back down. 

In a sheer panic, Charles caught it. Or not it, he supposed. Because this thing had to be Edwin. If it wasn’t that would mean that either Edwin was gone or he’d left him behind with their insane client. 

The idea that he might have done that nearly sent him into a tailspin. Should he double back and check? What if this was a trick and the real Edwin was somehow still there? Or what if there was something special about his knife that had turned Edwin into an orb?

Gently, he cradled Edwin to his chest as he turned to look for his bag. He’d picked up the knife, hadn’t he? Thankfully, it only took a few tries before he successfully pulled it from his bag. Ha, take that Edwin, he was getting better at using it.

“See, mate,” he said, his voice low and soft as he spoke over the orb. “I told you this bag was worth it. Already earnin’ its keep, hm?”

The handle of the knife was thankfully not iron coated. Charles hadn’t even thought about that earlier when he’d grabbed it. All he’d been thinking about was that Edwin was hurt, and he’d needed to disarm the guy.

Blood covered the blade, but aside from that there seemed to be nothing interesting about it at all. Not strange markings, no traces of magic that he could tell. It looked exactly like every other boring knife out there.

Except this one had hurt his friend.

The orb– Edwin, Charles supposed– pulsed again, the light from it peeking out between his fingers. Had Charles squeezed it by accident? He’d been so focused on the knife, so caught up in thoughts of their client hurting him that he hadn’t really…

Slowly but with more force than Charles anticipated, the orb pulled free from his hand. It bobbed around the room, floating here and there as if it were looking for something. It lingered above Edwin’s chair, the space where the other boy spent most of his time in the office. 

Yet there was nothing for it to do. It’s not like the orb had hands. It couldn’t hold a book or write or do anything that usually interested Edwin. 

As if it had realized this, it lazily floated back over to Charles. That yellow light seemed to be getting even stronger, calming Charles’s nerves just a bit. A strong light had to be a good sign, yeah? Surely that meant that Edwin was fine. 

Except what if he wasn’t fine? What if yellow was bad and he was trying to warn Charles? What if he needed help, and Charles couldn’t understand him? How was he meant to do anything if Edwin couldn’t talk to him anymore?

The orb bumped into his head, the softest, gentlest headbutt Charles had ever experienced. His thoughts slowed down as he lifted his hands up to cup the orb again.

“Well, mate,” Charles said. “What do you think we should do?” 

Edwin didn’t answer. Not that Charles thought he would.

“What if I read to you?” he asked. “I love it when you read to me. Helps me relax, yeah?”

Edwin seemed to warm up in his hands again. Charles took that as a good sign.

He strolled over to Edwin’s bookcase (our bookcase, Charles, the Edwin in his mind reminded him) and browsed their selection. Most of them were detective novels, but Edwin had recently started to collect more on magic and the supernatural.

No, he thought, should really stick to a classic.

“What about Sherlock Holmes? You love him,” he said, as if Charles didn’t also love him.

He grabbed one of their Sherlock Holmes books at random and made his way over to the couch. “Might as well get comfy, eh?” he asked and sprawled out.

For a moment, Charles was sure Edwin was going to float away. Maybe he hadn’t been as interested in reading to him as he’d thought. Instead, Edwin merely rolled down until he was resting on Charles’s chest, that warm, familiar feeling spreading all over him.

So Charles read to him. He read to him until he had finished one book, and then started on another that he could reach. His voice was a low rumble, the sound fading into the background as he split his attention between the words and Edwin. Time passed slowly and hazily, the sort of dream-like quality that only came when it didn’t really matter.

Eventually, when he thought he might go insane from reading so much, he talked. He told Edwin how he was sorry he hadn’t been fast enough to stop him– because really, Charles had been right there after all– and how he hoped that Edwin forgave him. He told him that when Edwin felt better, he would do anything he wanted. He’d even go see that play he’d been talking about that Charles couldn’t remember the name of if he wanted. And there was a show that Charles was interested in going to, but they could stand at the back where it was quieter and they were less likely to get stepped on if Edwin wanted to come.

He told him how much he missed him. How worried he was about him. How he knew that it had only been about a day since he’d gone into this form, but he didn’t think he’d missed anyone this much. Not his mum or dad, not his friends or teachers. No one.

Finally, he fell silent. He was sure that if he dug down deep enough there was more for him to say, but what was the point? Edwin was still stuck looking like the world’s brightest cricket ball, and he had just spilled about everything he had in him.

“I’m just worried,” Charles said. His arms wrapped around the orb so tightly it doubled as a self-hug. “Y’know I worry.”

Then again, maybe Edwin didn’t know. Charles loved to portray himself as this confident, friendly guy. Sure, he could be protective, but did Edwin know he was serious enough that he could worry?

Something shifted. The solid, golden color the orb had been since he’d started reading to him briefly changed. It flashed blue, a color that Charles normally loved but reminded him too much of Death in this instance, before it faded, and the orb was gone.

Before he could worry whether or not Death had actually come for them, he felt a solid weight pressing down on him. And there, in his lap, laid out across him, was Edwin. His feet were tucked up, allowing his long body to fit neatly onto the couch, his head cradled against Charles’s chest.

“Edwin?” he breathlessly asked.

Edwin shifted, his head tilting back just enough to look up at him. Charles had to loosen his death grip on him to allow even that. “Charles?”

Immediately, Charles hugged him closer. He smashed Edwin’s face into his chest and pressed his chin to the top of his head. “Don’t ever do that again, mate,” he said. “I mean it.”

For a moment, Edwin was frozen. Then, he thawed and relaxed himself into Charles’s hug. “I did not mean to worry you,” he said softly.

“Yeah, well, you did,” Charles said without any heat to it. Finally, he let his arms slide away from Edwin and allowed himself to get his first real look at his friend.

The first thing he noticed was that he looked tired. Dark bags lined his eyes and blood still smeared his collar, although whatever wound had been made was gone. He seemed paler than normal as well, but Edwin was always so pale it was hard to tell. 

“Alright?” he asked, still looking for any sign that he wasn’t.

Edwin nodded. “Yes,” he said. His voice sounded stronger than before, and God if it didn’t sound like Heaven to Charles. The idea that he might never have heard his friend speak again hadn’t truly hit him until this moment. “I believe I am unharmed.”

Charles’s eyes darkened. “You were stabbed. In the neck,” he said. Or close enough, anyways. “And then you turned into this glowing ball, and… well, I didn’t know what to do.”

Edwin flinched at the mention of his wound before soothing his expression into one of fondness. “Yes, I… seem to remember that,” he said. His hand came up to touch his throat, only to find no wound there. “It would seem I have healed.”

“Maybe that’s what that was?” he asked and made a gesture with his hand to show orb-sized Edwin. “Maybe that was like ‘ghost healing’?” 

Something between annoyance and acceptance flashed across Edwin’s face. “I believe you have it right,” Edwin said. “It would seem that would be the form ghosts take when they heal.”

Charles nodded. “Kinda brills, honestly. Like a turtle goin’ into their shell or something.”

Edwin squinted his eyes at the comparison. “I suppose,” he said. And then almost immediately collapsed when he tried to get up.

“Oi!” Charles said and wrapped his arms around him. “What’re you doing? You wanna be an orb again?” 

Edwin huffed as he settled back down. His face had washed out even more after his ill-advised attempt. “No, I do not,” he said. “But it hardly seems appropriate for me to just… lay all over you.”

Before he had died, Charles might have agreed. There was a certain amount of weirdness to it, he supposed, but that didn’t mean that he wanted Edwin to get up. In fact, he wanted Edwin to stay right where he was until he was strong enough to stand without passing out again.

Edwin rolled his eyes when he said this. “I did not pass out. Ghosts cannot do that,” he said. Yet he laid his head back down against Charles’s chest, his now ruffled hair tickling Charles’s chin. 

“Go back to sleep,” Charles said. Before Edwin could argue, he held a hand up and used it to gently bop him on the arm. “And don’t say ghosts can’t sleep. That’s basically what you were doing before.”

Edwin started to shake his head, but the motion quickly became him snuggling down against Charles. “I am merely resting my eyes.”

Charles grinned, a sudden wave of fondness he’d never felt for anyone else overtaking him. “Yeah, well rest your mouth too.”

Edwin tried to flip him off but failed. “Almost had it,” Charles teased.

“I’ll figure it out one day,” he said before fading back off to sleep. 

At least this time he stayed a ghost.

[smallgodseries]

Words mean things. This is unquestionable, incontrovertible, uncontroversial. Words mean things, or what’s the point in having words? They may mean different things in different languages, but when people are speaking the same language, they should be able to comfortably assume they’re understanding one another. That the words they use, identical and clear, should mean the same things.

And then comes Jeff.

Jeff seems at first glance to be a more pleasant fellow than his British cousin. He has such a lovely smile, after all, and he’s always so generous with the puff pastry and the butter. Such a pleasant fellow. Not like that Geoff, of the frosty silences and the refusal to share if you put a word out of line, oh, heavens, no! Not a bit of that. This is Jeff we’re talking about here, and Jeff is a good all-American god, happy to enrich the table and the tummy…

As long as you never mention desserts, never speak of scones. The phrase “dessert biscuit” is as anathema at Jeff’s table as the word “cookie” is at Geoff’s. How dare you profane the dance of buttermilk and flour, the sweet interplay of heat and moisture? These are not games for pastry chefs, not feasts for children! There should be no sweetness here, and indeed, there is no sweetness in Jeff’s heart. Unlike his cousin, who comes off cold and has a heart of chocolate chip, Jeff comes off warm and has a heart like a hockey puck once the first blush of heat fades, leaving him hardened beyond all reason.

Together, they can both open and conclude the feast. Together, they provide a delicious balance, and a wholeness to be dearly aspired to. But apart, they are incomplete, two pieces of a broken god, and it will take more than whipped butter to bring them back together.

It will take an Easy Bake miracle.

[incorrect-green-lantern-quotes]

When Geoff Johns rewrote Hal and Sinestro's first meeting in Rebirth, the latter mentions having trained several other Green Lanterns before Hal, which is just a fascinating concept to imagine.

Green Lantern: Rebirth

Stel is easily the most recognizable name among those that Sinestro lists here, and he still occasionally appears in the comics. You might also know Arkkis Chummuck if you're familiar with Corps history, though he's often mistaken for fellow Toomeyan Barreer Wot. Khen-To is the most obscure one, as his sole appearance is in Emerald Dawn.

Anyway, these three guys being established as Sinestro's students is a bit of a retcon, since it was never mentioned previously who else Sinestro had trained besides Hal. Which in itself is a retcon, because originally Sinestro had been expelled from the Corps before Hal ever joined. It wasn't until Emerald Dawn II that their current mentor/protege relationship was established, as well as the fact that Sinestro had recruited and trained other Green Lanterns.

History of retcons aside, I do wish that line about Sinestro's other students wasn't just a throwaway reference. The Corps is at its most interesting when the members have connections and relationships with each other. I get why no one, not even Johns himself, expanded on Arkkis and Khen, the former was killed off back in the 80s and the latter only existed to die while defending Oa in Emerald Dawn.

But Stel! He's still alive and kicking ass! There's still so much you could do with that connection to Sinestro (and Hal by proxy)!

Like, imagine what Sinestro's downfall might have looked like from Stel's perspective. He wasn't there like Hal was, he only learned of the atrocities committed on Korugar when the rest of the Corps also did. And upon learning of what his mentor did, he almost certainly went back through his memory banks, searching for any sign of whether Sinestro was always that corrupt or if he’d changed at some point. Trying to see if there was a point when Stel could have prevented all of this.

Or, if Stel isn’t the type of robot to dwell on the past, perhaps he seeks out Hal Jordan. Especially if Arkkis and Khen had already died by this point, who else could possibly understand what Sinestro's last student would be feeling?

One day, this human will become the greatest Green Lanterns, far eclipsing his traitorous teacher. But today, Hal is just a rookie who has seen his mentor put on trial and expelled. He is unsure of his place in the Corps, if there even is one for someone trained by such a treacherous monster. When a hulking android approaches him after the trial, Hal thinks that it's his turn to be thrown out. But to his surprise, the robot introduces himself as a fellow protege of Sinestro, and asks Hal how he's holding up.

This is one of the strangest conversations that Hal has ever had, speaking with an alien that looks like a sci-fi robot but addresses his doubts with understanding and compassion. Stel reassures Hal that the Corps will judge him on his own merits, rather than by the actions of Sinestro.

(that's Barreer, not Arkkis btw)

Even after Parallax and Emerald Twilight, Stel is willing to give Hal the benefit of the doubt- and is respected enough that his fellow Corpsmen will take his side over Salakk lmao

[dozing-marshmallow]

Hi sorry to send in another ask but I was wondering if you would be willing to write Eva, Geoff, Tyler, and Alejandro x shy male reader who they’ve been crushing on coming up to them and giving them a drawing that they just made of them. I’m just imagining like half of them blue screening.

If you don’t like this or don’t want to do it no worries. Thank you for your time.

Hey, thank you so much for remaining so patient! The amount of time I took to complete this was unacceptable, so I apologise and hope you enjoy.

SHY! MALE! READER GIVING A DRAWING TO TDI CHARACTERS (ALEJANDRO + EVA + TYLER + GEOFF)

ALEJANDRO

Alejandro announced that he would be taking a flight to Spain for the rest of summer.

You had one of your closer friends, who wasn’t from the show, help you navigate your way into the airport.

When you got in, you looked up at one of the screens and saw the gate number for Spain so you followed the signs.

You were worried that you may have misread it, until you saw the familar suave face of Alejandro, rotated right in your direction.

As though he had anticipated you!

“My, (Y/N)! Is that really you?“ He smiled benevolently to you,"What a delight to see you here before I must go! What have you come here for?"

“Alejandro, hello...” you greeted, giving a small wave,”I know you need to go to uh, board your plane soon, but I...” you gulped.

You decided to finish your sentence by presenting him the drawing.

“What’s this?” he questions rhetorically, taking the paper,“You..did this?”

You nodded sheepishly.

“Ay... I...really wasn’t expecting this.” You glanced up confused. The way he was speaking. That wasn’t a tone you recognised. Was it...

Before you could finish that thought, Alejandro shakes his head and his charming speech pattern was present again, hand on his cheek,“Oh how generous of you! To take such precious time out of your day to truly capture my mediocrity on paper!”

Mediocrity?

Oh. You get what he was trying to do.

Though, that didn’t stop you from contradicting his intentionally self deprecating comment,“No, don’t call yourself that... You’re not mediocre.”

“No? Then what am I? Below average?”

“Beyond average,” you murmured, but he heard it.

“Oh my dear amigo! Your words have touched my heart. You are too kind! Is there any possible way to repay this? You must tell me.”

“N-No, don’t... There’s no point in drawing you if I wanted something in return..”

“Your heart indeed is made of gold.” he claimed, delicately storing it away in his backpack,“Many thanks. I shall never pass this over.”

“You’re welcome.” you say, now running out of things to say, you reminded the brunette of his flight.

“Oh, yes! Ah, what unfortunate timing!” he comedically slaps a hand to his forehead,”If it were in my hands, I would freeze time to go into deep praise about your talents!” he grabs the handle of his suitcase,“Farewell, (Y/N). May sunshine follow your days.”

You knew Alejandro was probably trying to use the drawing to lure you into a facade of security.

Which was further from the truth.

As Alejandro joined the queue and watched your fading figure, he wondered when the right opportunity would come.

EVA

The gym was the best place to find Eva.

And right you were: when you walked in, you found the sports-driven woman.

She seemed really focused on her weights... That frown was putting you off... 20kg like it was nothing...

Okay... Um... After she’s done, I’ll...give it to her then.

And when that time did come, you were still so nervous. The whole time, she carried this dark aura, warning you to not come close.

At least she’s not doing a set now... So I’m not exactly disturbing her from anything...but I am still disturbing her by doing this, aren’t I?

When will you get to have another opportunity like this? After a deep breath, you quietly stepped towards her towering body.

You’re close enough... Now, you could get her attention...

You flinch when you do.

Annoyed, she turns around and ripped an earbud out of her ear and sneers her question,“Yeah? What do you want?”

That sounded more like an imperative than a question... You regretted what you’ve done now...but there’s no way she was going to let you off until you did what you wanted to do. Just keep your eyes away and your voice low,“Sorry to interrupt you... Can...I give something to you?”

“I’m busy. Give it later.” she grumbled, grabbing a new pair of weights.

Oh. Never mind,“Ah...okay. Sorry.”

“Nghh. You know what.” she had her hand squeezed on your shoulder,“Give it now.”

You sigh and handed her the drawing,“I just...thought you looked nice. Sorry...for wasting your time. I’ll go now.”

“Now hold on just a minute...”Uh oh,“You come to me when I’m busy with this drawing and you’re walking away without me even getting my thanks in?!”

“...Sorry?”

She playfully punches you, and you could see how wide her smile was,“Man, I can’t believe I was about to let you go when I had this thing to look at! It’s the first time someone’s drawn me in this way!”

“Oh... So, people have drawn you before?” That was surprising.

“Yeah, but in ways that really get on my nerves. They colour my face red and even give me demon horns!” she explained, seeming to clutch the paper out of progressive anger.

“Oh...” you felt very awkward now,”I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t sweat it. I usually throw their faces in the mud and throw water over as retribution.” she added, now back to smiling.

...Eva’s wrath was no laughing matter.

Though it looks like you found the loophole.

TYLER

You knew Tyler would be at the local swimming pool.

Standing outside of it, you checked over your drawing one last time to make sure you didn’t accidentally draw a horrible caricature drawing. 

It was the same piece you intended to give to him, but you realised you forgot to add his signature red sweatband.

Curse your forgetfulness as you messily wrote down an apology to the side of paper Tyler’s head.

You went down to the swimming pool, taking caution as you walked on the slippery floors. You spotted Tyler in the deeper end of the pool, though feeling embarrassed that shouting for him would draw attention, you decide to let him notice you.

And when he does, he grins, waving wildly,“(Y/N), hey!” and attempted to swim faster, however when he got up, he ended up slipping and fell right on his back...then back into the pool.

You winced. This isn’t the first something excruciating happened to him, though the sight of it still gets you every time,”Oh God, Tyler, are you okay?”

He resurfaced and swam weaker than before and cautiously went up the ladder by your feet,”Yeah yeah, I’m still alive! What are you doing here, did you decide to sign up for the swimming team for next year?”

You shake your head,“No no, not this year... Uh... I actually came to see you... Because I know we won’t see each other until September...so I made this in appreciation of you.” not wanting him to ruin the drawing with his dripping wet limbs, you held it up for him to see.

He blinked, and took it anyway,“Is this me? Doppppe! My first fanart!”

“Uh...” you blinked,”Fanart?”

“Yeah! I’m gonna frame this and put it on my wall at home!” he clapped his wet hand with yours,“Thanks man! You’re real talented!”

“Oh!” you blush,“No worries!”

GEOFF

Geoff had thrown a party for all the Total Drama contestants of your generation and you would have skipped it if you didn’t know the people.

The perfect chance to give him the drawing.

When you arrived, Geoff was there by the DJ booth.

Taking a deep breath, you went over to him,“Hello Geoff...” you smile softly.

He enthusiastically tips his hat to you,“Yo, (Y/N)! My favourite party pal! What’s smokin’, bro?”

You kept your meek smile, a contrast to the internal turmoil to give it to him now,“...Hi Geof. I hope I’m not bothering you, but I wanted to um-“

“No friend is either a bother, man! What’s that you wanted to show me?” no going back now. He sees that your hand is preoccupied with something.

So, you gave that something over to him, facing down.

With a curious expression, he takes it and flips it over.

His jaw drops. He hates it-

“Yo (Y/N)! Did you do this? It looks incredible!” Huh?,“How do you get my chin right? No one ever gets my chin right!”

“Really?... I didn’t think much about that chin... I was worried about the shading...”

“The shading? You shaded this thing!?” Geoff exclaimed even louder as his eyes frantically scanned the paper again,“No way! I look almost look as good as that Mona Lisa gal! Sorry I didn’t notice that before dude, I love this to bits! Massive thank you man!” he suddenly surrounds you with a friendly embrace.

You gasped, but once you registered the gesture, a sense of security flowed through your veins. Geoff, however, didn’t get the last part and let go of you immediately.

“Sorry sorry, lost myself for a sec there, bro! It’s just, this art! It’s so good, it’s like putting me under a spell! You were fine with the hugging, right?”

You give a small smile,“Of course.”

“This is like an early birthday gift! Or late.” he turns to you curiously,”If your birthday’s six months from now, does that make it six months early or six months late?”

Another quirky question!,“Um...both?”

“Yeah! You’re right! Both still make a valid reason to party!” he grinned,“Thanks again man!”

[fraudulent-cheese]

Jumble of Total Drama contestants with the Papa's Freezeria Deluxe orders im assigning them, Part 1

Alejandro: Choose the pineapple chunks for very obvious reasons; i landed on strawberry for the syrup because i just looked up what flavors go well with Pineapple and it showed up. Generally a sweet, sweet sundae because he definitely has a sweet tooth he won't admit to

Axel: Variant on the Nutty Butter Blondie. The original Special Recipe is almost perfect but it was missing the bitterness Axel would particularly enjoy. She'd totally like peanut butter tho

B: Most of his sundae was chosen for the vibes™, that and i can't see him ordering big sugary stuff on the regular, but if he does he'll indulge with the caramel and honey. The birch beer toping is added specifically because he likes the flavor.

Bridgette: hers was inspired by the Ube Blue Bay as well as the Tropical Treat, the former being one of the Special Recipes with the Maui Meringue included. I gave her, Geoff and Brody similar ice creams for uh. being the polysurfer trio in my head lol

Brody: SPEAKING OF WHICH. Based off of Calypso Island Coconuts except not really. Just wanted to incorporate a bit more pink and i got a little carried away.

Courtney: Variant of the Caramel Macchiato. i simply changed it to include more brownies as a reference to Island. That, and to make this sundae even sweeter.

Dawn: Im so glad the easter holiday gives you access to this many pastel colored ingredients, because it was very easy to make Dawn's sundae that way!

Dawn would be a tiramisu and jelly beans enjoyer and you cannot convince me otherwise. because im correct

Duncan: Vaguely inspired by the sundae i have him when i drew him that one time. Lots of Mint toppings because it's green and also chocolate.

Oh, and the Birch Beer topping is just added because Duncan's a tryhard and thinks it's alcoholic or whatever. He'd do underage drinking to be cool but the only alcohol he could stomach is cider

Emma: Straight up just the Caramel Macchiato. What else would she order, really.

Geoff: Just the Tropical Treat Special Recipe. Look at it. It's him but a sundae

Heather: This sundae made me realise there's no direct lemon flavored syrup or chunks in the game, so kiwi chunks + chai syrup was the closest approximation to her order.

I also generally think her favorite holiday would be the volcano gala, mostly because the holiday outfits are so elegant and beautiful. It would appeal to her better than the others at least

Lindsay: Decided to freestyle this one!

The pink lemonade syrup was a MUST for her, she'd love it so much. In general i think she'd enjoy strawberry/cherry flavored ice creams and drizzles and such. She'd order a coffee with three pumps strawberry. to me.

I choose the Donut chunks instead of straight strawberry because it's sweeter :p

Noah: Did not realize both the characters i had chosen for both my Driver and Chef were going to be back to back due to the Alphabetical order O_O

Uh anyways! For Noah i tried coming up with the sundae that would hypothetically have the most inoffensive taste/texture, because i cannot see him liking anything more elaborate :p

Trent: Variant of the Big Top Blondie. It's an apple/banana/lemony sundae, and it's exactly the flavors he'd enjoy. Shame you can't control the numbers that come out of the new years shaker tho, so i had to resort to the 7s.

Tyler: Another freestyle! Generally landed on something that included biscuits and the cereal shaker topping since i do think Tyler would like those alot. Also she can share with Lindsay since it's large :D

Aaaand i had way too many for one post, so uh. yeah. See you in part 2

[turbulenthandholding]

Season 3 rewatch continues with Children...

The beginning of this scene is so cinematic and so ominous...

I cannot remember if this is something I read here somewhere recently (it probably was) or something out of my own head, but I think there's an interesting parallel between Marcus's ask out of Syd during F&F with Claire's voicemail on the same day.

There is also an interesting through line of Syd's conversation with Shapiro in the previous episode, where she mentions "inherited crazy," and how she talks about her dad here with their shared predisposition to be early to everything ("You are unwell," Marcus tells her). I think it speaks to the ways that Syd and Carmy balance each other out, if they let themselves.

What even are these Purple Heather lyrics that play while Carmy is lovingly crafting yet another plating he will throw out; now I am unwell (and apologies if this has been discussed before; I'm just noticing it now):

summertime has gone, is it?

and the leaves are gently turning

and my love, I wanna take you

to the place my heart is yearning

will you go? will you go, child go

This foreshadows the freaking Ever funeral, doesn't it? And Carmy's invitation to Syd to go with him. The place he's yearning to take her is not just to the funeral itself but to the healthier environment that the Ever kitchen seemed to be when he was there?

And the next thing you see is Richie getting the news about Ever as he irons:

and we'll all, and we'll all go together

in the wild mountain thyme

and all around...

It's simultaneously indicating that Richie is going to be at the funeral but also that Richie is needed if The Bear is going to get to the place Carmy wants it to be...

Also I noticed for the first time it's Will Guidara (producer of this season, author of Unreasonable Hospitality, Ever funeral attendee) who texts Carmy the news about Ever. I guess before my brain translated Will Guidara to Will Poulter to Luca 😂

"Photographs are gonna last a lot longer than that, Neil Geoff" LOL

The conversation Syd and Carmy have...she's so much more playful than I remember her. And when she asks him if he knew Ever was special when he was there, it's so loaded and weighty

I love so much how Natalie keeps telling us things that Pete loves or knows about, like the director with Richie during Violet, or here when she tells Marcus that Pete loves flowers

Too many Faks already and Cena hasn't even shown up yet. Though the thing Neil says after Ted admits to giving Neil claustrophobia, "I'm still afraid of boxes," feels weighty somehow.

And when Syd calls herself an accomplice 😭

Ahh the Richie/Jess conversation is delightful

The reprise of "Save it for Later" is also super interesting to me. This time instead of watching the rest of the city get to work, we get to see the team all working...

Syd's transposition of "whatever grows together goes together" into "whatever goes together grows together" is also fascinating in light of the reprise of "Save it for Later"

Whyyyy John Cena whyyyyyy???

But interesting the first thing he says is, "Anybody seen a ghost?" and it's the start of the haunting. Also Neil needs to call his dad back, Carmy needs to talk to Claire, and Nat needs to talk to DeDe...

"You specialize in the fucking fuckery, bro" 😂

Also I love that this is the second time this season that Carmy has said someone (first Syd in Next, now Jimmy) are being either sarcastic or passive aggressive, only to be corrected that it's actually worse (Syd's "snark" and "contempt"; Jimmy's aggressive - aggressive)

And the WAY Jimmy pushes up his glasses with his middle finger... stealing this now

So do all these fucking Faks have the same middle name? And "fuck a duck" did make me laugh out loud

"If you fuck with Marcus I will murder you" is fucking beautiful

Also fucking beautiful is Syd and Jimmy's conversation

[kevinvoncrastenburg]

Uberhood (163) - Cleveland

Justin Cleveland and Sandra Roth tied the knot! (They fell in love behind the scenes. They were close friends first and eventually fell in love at Marissa & Malcolm's wedding. Kinda funny to imagine that almost didn't happen since Justin attended that wedding rather involuntary after having a falling-out with his mother)

A round of applause for Mr. & Mrs. Cleveland! ✨ Here are some pictures from the wedding celebration:

The Roths, Sandra's family, came all the way from Riverblossom Hills. (I love to see families come together years later. Especially when you consider their history, see the progress and have screenshots to compare them to)

Justin's uncle and aunt also came to celebrate the newlywed couple. Justin and Geoff always had a close bond and there was no way he'd miss this.

Geoff even brought Marissa, his sister and Justin's mother, to the wedding. He knew it was risky to bring her but he's so close to both of them and just couldn't stand to see them apart and not speaking to each other anymore. Especially on such an important day like Justin's wedding. Justin was full of love that day and accepted Marissa's, if not a little timid, apology. He acknowledged and appreciated her attempt (that's a big step for someone like Marissa) and knows they need time to fully regain their trust and repair their relationship. Justin realized he was mostly fighting his parents' battles and, even though he doesn't regret defending his father, he acknowledged that and wants to leave the past behind. If Marissa and Jason, who are both way happier now, can leave the past behind, why shouldn't Justin be able to do the same?

Compared to most weddings, Justin and Sandra's one was more intimate. What mattered the most to them was that all important people were there. Family members and very close friends like the DeBateaus. Especially Tara DeBateau, who's Justin's best friend since high school days. (Btw I love of Stella Roth is on almost every single picture. 😅)

Really Tara? Just one part ago I told everybody how sophisticated and well-behaved you are and then you pull this stunt on me? First you appear dressed in white to a wedding and then you chose to put soap into the fountain? Is Dustin's bad influcence already rubbing of on you? 😂 (Ngl this was funny as hell and I like her even more now)

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the asshole for hanging out with someone less in-person, and more online?

Here me out first please.

My buddy Austin (he/him) and I usually hang out at least every other week, if not every week. We've been doing this for the last few years after we both got more conformable doing in-person hangouts after the covid vaccines reached the general public in our country.

About a year ago, Austin was in a car accident (not a major one, don't worry) and walked away with a mild concussion (doctor's description). Ever since that car accident, Austin has been super sensitive to sound. In his words, walking across his floor in socks sounds like elephant stomping. His floor is carpet. Typing on a phone is so loud and distracting he can't hear anything else. Birds outside his house sound like they're chirping directly into his ear. He vents to me often that having a regular-volumed conversation sounds so loud it's painful to him.

When I'm over at his house, I try to be as quiet as I can. I'm careful to soft-step around the house and not take my shoes off. I try to shuffle or slide through the kitchen and other rooms that are not carpet so I make less noise. We whisper or half-whisper half-speak to each other in conversation. Movies we have subtitles on and the volume turned down to almost 0%. But Austin still looks like he's in pain by the end of a couple hour hang-out. Sometimes he'll get up and put in earplugs and then come back to continue the hangout. I feel really bad that he's putting himself through so much.

The last few months, instead of always hanging out in-person, I've been suggesting doing something virtual and letting Austin decide which he wants. I figure that if we're gaming, he can wear his earplugs or mute the game and we can use game chat or text each other to communicate. Same with watching movies, we can both adjust our volumes to our comfort levels (and leave subtitles on still. I don't mind them). Sometimes he wants to just do things online, and sometimes he insists on hanging out in-person. It's been about 60/40 online to in-person so far.

We hung out last weekend and first Austin said let's hang out in-person, but the night before we were supposed to hang out, he told me he rather hang out online this time. I was cool with it, but when I let my roommate Geoff (who is also good friends with Austin) know that actually I'd be home most of the day Saturday and answered Geoff's "why are you hanging out with Austin online again?" with "i don't know, Austin probably wants a quiet weekend instead", my roommate started accusing me of infantilizing Austin by hanging out online instead of in-person, that I'm abandoning Austin because his "auditory disablility is too inconvenient for fragile able-bodied feelings" (Geoff's words), and how since Austin hasn't explicitly said that in-person hanging out is too loud for him, then I'm being ableist by assuming things are too loud when he hasn't directly said that I am too loud. I argued that I don't think of Austin as lesser, I just don't want to cause him any unnecessary pain, and it's pretty obvious when things are too loud for him without words, because you can read the "Make it stop" / "No more" expression on his face. But Geoff doubled down really hard and told me i should be ashamed of treating Austin like he's incapable of making his own choices.

I was pissed and just walked out with my laptop. We did our movie day with me on the local library wifi instead. I don't think for a second I've taken away Austin's ability to choose, since I let Austin make the call on in-person or online!! But I'm also completely able-bodied. I haven't even experienced a temporary disability-experience like needing crutches during injury recovery or anything. Geoff has a chronic pain and fatigue disorder, so he has more experience with microaggressions than I do. So I don't know if I'm right about this being a non-issue, or if Geoff is right about me being ableist against Austin's noise sensitivities. It keeps eating at me now, and I don't want to bring this up with Austin since I already know he's really insecure about his new volume tolerance levels. Am I an asshole for doing online hangouts with Austin instead of sticking to only in-person stuff?

[shodandbg]

Total Drama x Kingdom Hearts: Keyblade Wielder Bridgette🌊🏄‍♀️

THIS is the next phase of my TD x KH project: Nomura-fying the contestants! First up, Bridgette!

In this version of TD All-Stars, Bridgette once more returns as a contestant to Camp Wawanakwa mostly thanks to Geoff, who told the producers that the only way he’d participate in the season if it’s his girlfriend could get another shot too (well, that, and at least one more Aftermath episode). The blonde surfer couple is a lot more focused this time around, reserving their making out sessions for when the cameras aren’t rolling or whenever there’s no challenge. Despite their good natures, both are placed on the Villainous Vultures by Chris for different reasons: Geoff due to his Captain Hollywood arc in Action and Bridgette due to her kissing Alejandro live on World Tour. Speaking of Alejandro, Bridgette flat out ignores him and only works with him for team related challenges, nothing else. Not only that, she becomes very reserved towards some of her former friends like Gwen or Courtney due to their attitudes post TDI, doubting her friendship statuses with them, clouding her heart with darkness.

That is, until she meets Sora.

Sora’s friendship and kindness, however, allow Bridgette to gradually clear things up. For example: She first renews her friendship with Gwen, who was also seeking to fix things with the people she valued the most, and eventually with Courtney, who regrets her actions from the previous seasons (both have earned their own Keyblades by this point). Understanding who helps her heart more than not, including her friends, Sora, and her beloved Geoff, she resolves to make sure others feel safe again. She also resolves not to let her mistakes define who she is, knowing who she is and who and what make her. Her newfound resolve awakens her heart’s power and she earns her Keyblade: Victorious Surfer.

With her new Keyblade in hand, she becomes one of Sora’s pupils in using it and forms part of his new team to fight the Heartless and Nobodies off of Wawanakwa: The Dramatic Guardians of Light.

In this post, besides the surfer girl being Nomura-fied, I also included a comparison between my artwork and the original design edit I made (inspired by many other fanarts) and two versions of her Station of Awakening: One filled with the characters and passions that make her heart whole and the other one empty just to highlight Bridgette as a whole). Her looks are inspired by Aqua from Birth By Sleep and her Keyblade has the pole from WT as a handle and her surfboard as part of the blade, the tip is an ocean wave and the overall shape is a dolphin, her favorite animal.

I really hope you like her! 😊😁

[crepesuzette2023]

Beatles Books as vaguely defined friends and relatives at a party you attend with a new crush, whose name you keep mispronouncing.

The longer you stay, the more trouble you have remembering what the occasion was.

The lights keep changing. Shortly after you arrived, your crush shrunk to the size of a mouse, and scurried away. You’re on your own.

The Beatles (Bob Spitz) greets you, an attractive silver fox who seems to be shunned by most of the others. You wonder why. It’s as easy to imagine him as a crying wreck as it is to imagine him on a golf course. Here, There, and Everywhere (Geoff Emerick) disrupts your musings by pulling tapes from his mouth. Seeing your discomfort, he stops and hands you a photograph of John Lennon and Paul McCartney singing into the same microphone. As he does, his pupils take on the shape of hearts. Someone called George announces his intent to poison him.

Anthology (The Beatles) saunters in, puts eight arms around you, and promises to tell you the whole story. They proceed to speak in tongues, and throw popcorn at you. Stu Sutcliffe jumps from a pendant around their neck, lands on the floor, and scurries after your crush.

“It’s always like this,” says Body Count (Francie Schwartz). “I assume you don’t want to listen to my story about a gifted woman who got locked up for depression? That’s fine, I can also talk about frottage, and a certain man’s curves.”

“Oh, stop it,” says John (Cynthia Lennon). She turns to you. “My advice is: Turn around and run as fast as you can.” She demonstrates what she means by disappearing, leaving behind a purse filled with cheerful letters and drawings of herself getting married and giving birth. Everything smells of olive oil. Francie spots Loving John (May Pang), and rushes to her, greedy for gossip. Loving John (May Pang) is everyone’s favorite, because she doesn’t really know anyone very well, but she knows how to make everyone feel comfortable by saying things that make sense in the moment.

Living the Beatles Legend: The Mal Evans Story (Ken Womack) ends up taking her home; they both live at The Fringes. Her home is a little further than his, which is just this side of Weird whereas she’s all the way in Montauk, but he’ll make sure she gets there safely.

To make up for the disappearance of your crush, Remember (Mike McCartney) cuts your hair. Each snip of the scissors slots a black-and-white picture into your field of vision. Windows in time blow noise and heat in your face, and visions of a screaming band that looks a bit like the young Beatles. Then there’s the quiet heat of summer, towels rippling on the line, and a drain pipe screwed to the wall of a house. He talks about childhood, and you’re almost there, but you never will be, because he won’t let you in. His more verbose twin, The Macs (Mike McCartney), recites letters his brother and John wrote from Hamburg, but you can barely understand what he says, because he stuffed a tissue into his mouth.

“It’s only a story,” says The Lyrics (Paul McCartney). “Pleased to meet you. I’m a storyteller myself.” He sings a love song. “I must have thought about these things when I wrote it,” he muses. “Interesting. What a mind, as Linda used to say.”

He tears a few pages from a diary he kept in Paris in 1961 and hands them to you without comment.

At this point, the party is dissolving. Crocheted furniture floats away and stretches.

“Am I too late?” Skywriting by Word of Mouth (John Lennon) squeezes himself out of the lowest drawer of an antique desk, where, judging from by his crinkly pajamas, he slept. “I’m in pieces. Mend me with glue.”

“I will, I will!” Tune In—All These Years, Vol I (Mark Lewisohn) yells ecstatically. “I’m so glad you could make it Sit down with me and celebrate the heritage of Liverpool.”

Skywriting drapes himself around Tune In, who starts purring and rutting against him.

“Excuse me?” It’s The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story (Vivek Tiwary), torero boots clicking on the invisible floor as he strides towards the couch. A spotlight follows him. “I’m managing this show, and I insist on expanding the scene.” Around them, a hotel room forms.

Skywriting lights a cigarette. “Join us in bed, Bri.”

“Yes,” moans Tune In. “I’m so lonely. I’m the oldest of a triplet, or so they say, but the other two haven’t been born yet.”

The Fifth Beatle sits down and observes the unhinged biography losing himself in the friction of rubbing against the shapeshifting Skywriting. Finally, things reach a conclusion.

“And so,” says The Fifth Beatle, “what partially was, finished.”

“Stop repeating lines from a bad movie, Brian," says Skywriting, "you’re better than that.”

As you try to plot ways to escape through the skylight, The McCartney Legacy, Vol 1 (Sinclair & Kozinn) slides out from under the bed, a broad-shouldered lady in a bright red dress. A half-hatched alien with long legs and sunglasses squirms between her breasts, and makes mouth percussion sounds.

“Gentlemen.” The McCartney Legacy retrieves a very, very long rosary from her pocket. “Is anyone interested in an exquisitely crafted, finely wrought chronology?”

At the sound of the word “chronology,” The Beatles (Hunter Davies) crashes through the ceiling.

“Don’t fall for it!” The Beatles snatches the vocalizing baby alien from The McCartney Legacy’s chest, and kills it by wringing its neck. “Time stopped in 1968. The only valid extension are my own salacious additions. Strictly off the record.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” says The Fifth Beatle.

You exchange a glance with Skywriting, who is plucking pieces of Tune In from his body like children snatch pieces of dough, and sticking them in his mouth.

A camera clicks.

“Excellent.”

The Eyes of the Storm (Paul McCartney) lowers the camera, and changes into a suntanned, gleaming likeness of George Harrison. Then he changes into a fish.

“Everyone looking at the pictures will think they know,” the fish says. “They’ll have no idea!”

The floor dissolves under you. You fall into a pool, just in time to save your crush from being sucked into the drain, and after a barely audible edit you find yourself back home, with no memories at all, the taste of chewing gum in your mouth, and wearing matching tops saying, I visited Fellini’s Satyricon, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt. (ETA: I can't believe I forgot about Dreaming the Beatles (Rob Sheffield). I guess I'll have to include him in the inevitable sequel to this...thing, as the +1 of John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs (Ian Leslie).)