mad on the internet

The only criterion for inclusion is that somebody on tumblr thinks John or Paul might have written it about each other.

I make no judgment as to whether these are actually the case but enjoy and do add your suggestions if you think anything has been missed off!

New: Part 5 in Tug of War series now live, a shortish longfic (is that a thing?)

Six years before the world watched the Cold War thaw in Reykjavík, a different kind of peace summit unfolded in Hveragerði.

In August 1980, John and Paul meet again after years of distance. Among moss, waterfalls, and aurora, they confront the past they buried, the desire that shaped them, and the love that refused to die.

New: Part 5 in Tug of War series now live, a shortish longfic (is that a thing?)

Six years before the world watched the Cold War thaw in Reykjavík, a different kind of peace summit unfolded in Hveragerði.

In August 1980, John and Paul meet again after years of distance. Among moss, waterfalls, and aurora, they confront the past they buried, the desire that shaped them, and the love that refused to die.

John seduces Paul through music when he visits the Dakota in 1978.

But as it turns out, all is not as it first appears.

New longfic in my 70s McLennon tug of war series featuring smut, drama and intrigue.

Palm Sunday 1974 - How Do You Sleep???!!!

George is meanwhile like idk I wrote some stuff about my life and experiences… is that crazy or can it also exist beside the ragtime and Western gunslinger ballads and free-verse beat triptychs

Ringo is like fuck it I quit the band all this artsy gay shit is sickening……nah I’m just kiddin, hehe. I’m into it :) but I will be drinking

What about the time we met? Well, I suppose that you could say that we were playing hard to get Didn't understand a thing But we could always sing

I feel like there’s not enough discussion of this verse as a whole. On the surface, the “playing hard to get” line might seem like a simple reference to whole "pretending not to care" attitude they both had at the begining, like when John sent Pete Shotton to ask Paul if he wanted to join the band (instead of asking him directly), and Paul weighing the offer with a cautious “I’ll think about it.” I'm pretty sure that’s what Paul might say if someone asked him about that line. But it’s clearly deeper than that. The line that comes after, “we didn’t understand a thing” suggests there was something more going on that they couldn’t articulate at the time. So music became their love language, ("but we could always sing"), the way they expressed emotions they couldn’t (or were afraid to) name.

Something special between us When we made love the game was over I couldn't say the words Words wouldn't get my feelings through

I see this verse from However Absurd as the more unfiltered version of that same theme expressed in Here Today. It explores a similar tension: a “game,” a "playing hard to get" dynamic, which ended once actual intimacy began, all while the difficulty of fully communicating these feelings lingered. And maybe this continued until that night in Key West, when, as Paul said, ‘there wasn't any reason to keep it all inside’; they finally gave a verbal release to the love they had previously expressed only through songs (which is why we really need to pay attention to the love songs they wrote before mid 1964, like Just Fun, If I Fell, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, etc.), even if they had already been physically intimate before.

"We got drunk and started to get kind of emotional, you know, ‘Oh, you were great when you –– I love that.’ We started [and] it all came out. On the way to that, there was a lot of soul-searching. We told each other a few truths. ‘Well, I love you. I love you, man. I love that you said that. I love you.’ And we opened up."

John seduces Paul through music when he visits the Dakota in 1978.

But as it turns out, all is not as it first appears.

New longfic in my 70s McLennon tug of war series featuring smut, drama and intrigue.

Paul wanders through the sacred ground, an object in his pocket. The night is troubled and misty. The moon looms over the gravestones. A bitter mist hangs in the January air, the sort of rain that falls sideways, silently, gathering in the air without notice, filling your clothes until your body is soaked to the bone.

He hasn’t brought a torch. He doesn’t want to be discovered. Hard enough it was to climb over the railings at 2am. But it was the only time he could be sure of privacy. His feet falters as he trips over ivy. He enters the little arch. A copse of trees in the most ancient part of the graveyard, hidden away from the rest of the world.

It is the sort of place that should be tranquil, beautiful. But Paul sees only the pain. His heart is heavy, pocket full. He takes out a small trowel he brought for the purpose. It is James’ trowel he uses for gardening when helping out in the farm. The cheerful yellow colour looks dissonant against the grey of the gravestones. He has to work hard to dig into the frozen ground. He hits and hits the trowel until it bends, finally making a little space where he can bury the object. They had never spoken about it since. He sits back to admire his handiwork.

In a few months, there will be bluebells.

It was their place. Where they used to go to have their own space. The only place they could be sure to remain undiscovered. Where they could be their true selves. The first time they kissed, the ivy garlanding the entrance to their secret world, beams of sunlight breaking through the full leafed trees like windows in a church.

Someone taken from him too soon, someone he was never able to say sorry to. They never reached the bottom of each other’s souls.

John seduces Paul through music when he visits the Dakota in 1978.

But as it turns out, all is not as it first appears.

New longfic in my 70s McLennon tug of war series featuring smut, drama and intrigue.