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#though they aren't very tumblr aesthetic™
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Ok, let´s see: the incident who happened when Paul was with a girl and John destroyed her dress, who is very confucing; some songs of Paul (well lots of songs) who can be related about this (from the obvious Here Today to The Lovers who Never Were) the interminable descriptions of the beautiful hands of one, the handsome presence of the other, etc...the "if you were a girl" moment ( who i can´t remember when, but was one of my first pieces of suspiction XD) all the pinning (from both of them, but Paul even more...he still dreams with him sometimes)...the weird "fanfiction" where appear amie d´mitril and Paris...
...someone said me in Discord "There are some men who are boyfriends and don't realize it until they break up" after showing an iceberg with some Mclennon theories. Someone who no was even into it.
Im kinda agnostic about all this, but im really amazed about all the theories who exist about this, who the doubts and suspictions are really understable. Is a lot on info!
Are you asking me to rate this for the ask game, because most of these are verifiable things, the question is just what they mean/what led to them, right?
I can give you a personal take on all of them though.
John cutting up the girl Paul was having sex with's clothes: I 100% find this eyebrow-raising and quite possibly an act of jealousy. But I also can't discount that John was likely off his face and maybe his reason for doing that didn't really make sense either. (e.g. maybe he wanted to use the bedroom and thought up a way to get rid of the girl as fast as possible? I don't know, I just don't think there's enough information to be sure of his motivations)
Songs: I generally find it kind of exhausting to argue about song meanings and what they reveal about John and Paul's relationship without anything else to go on. I feel like songs don't have to be about them for them to have had Feelings™ for each other and also songs could be about them and be less literal than some people think. There can be emotions and themes inspired by the other that find their way into a song, without the song literally describing what happened. What I mean by this is I don't think it's at all impossible However Absurd (of which I've read the lyrics, to be clear) is in some sense about John but I wouldn't from that conclude that John and Paul literally made love. And if I'm not drawing these conclusions, it's less important to me whether However Absurd is about John or not, in that sense.
Beautiful hands: I do want to slightly push back against describing Paul's geberal speech pattern with words like "interminable". Tumblr deliberately picks out the most ~mclennon-y~ things from his interviews and shares these quotes over and over. (also thinking of last year when people were claiming most of the Eyes of the Storm book was John, when really those were just the pictures people shared around the most) That's not to say he doesn't bring up John a lot (lol) but I think he probably mentions John's hands specifically less often than some think. The thing is, the main quote people use regarding this, is the one where Paul directly compares John's hands to his son's. Unless you wanna argue Paul is into James, you have to conclude Paul finds hands aesthetically pleasing and interesting without necessarily being attracted to them. And showing John chords and playing guitar "mirrored" actually makes a lot of sense as something that would make Paul notice John's hands.
Handsome presence of the other: your mileage may vary here and it depends on the specific quote. Some I agree, and some are imo them both just being frank about the fact that physical attraction matters to people, even when you aren't personally physically attracted to them.
"If I had been a woman...": single best argument for reciprocated McLennon IMO. I also think it's very possible that Paul is observing the fact that romantic relationships are hierarchically placed above friendships and "the bro code" prevented Paul from doing anything about John's privileging of Yoko over him. But it could definitely Also be Paul saying "I would like to have gotten together with him".
Pining: Honestly, I think they both had a lot of reason to feel Weird about each other in the seventies. There was a lot of bad blood but also a lot bonding them in an almost cosmic way: the shared trauma of losing a mother AND of fame, the weirdness of being both pitted against each other and sold to the public as a package deal... I think they were ripe for the conflicted pining picking. Regarding Paul's behaviour NOW.... I don't know, I don't think it's weird at all that he still sometimes dreams about John. I think he talks about John in part because that's what people want to hear (and tumblr pretends to be surprised every time when they're part of the target audience lol) and also I think.... people sometimes sort of gloss over the fact that Paul literally lost John in a highly traumatic way? Maybe that's gonna make him A Little Weird. (most of this is neither here nor there, regarding their romantic feelings for each other by the way)
Amie in Paris:
I haven't read the story in full but I feel similarly here to how I feel about the songs I think. There might be an argument that John is less prone to fictionalizing than Paul (though... I don't think that applies to his prose, even if autobiographical elements can be found in it) but he's also joking half the time. It doesn't to me feel like an especially fruitful avenue to conclude things about John's life.
All in all, I know what you mean. I do think there's A Lot going on between them, however you parse it.
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