12. What do you think of Yoko's art?

answered here

23. Did How Do You Sleep go too far?

Thank you Kris! I'm gonna go with TOS Kirk

Favorite thing about them: How he really believes in equality and treating everyone around him with respect. Also the way he teases his friends. Also the way he's a strategist, always observing and thinking. I'm gonna stop there or I could go on.

Least favorite thing about them: His workaholic tendencies. Cmon man, take a break. You know he’s the kinda guy who’s impossible to have a conversation with bc hes always thinking about work and starfleet and space. And thats if you can even get him alone for 5 minutes when he’s not working.

(as for actual character flaws, I'd have to think about it, tbh)

Favorite line: The Let Me Help monologue ""Let me help." A hundred years or so from now, I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He'll recommend those three words even over "I love you."

brOTP: Kirk and McCoy! Specifically I enjoy like nebulous/queerplatonic McKirk where they would never actually date but they’re also each other’s emotional rocks/their Person in life

OTP: Kirk/Spock, obvs. I mean, look at them. to me theyre the rare kind of OTP where like, i can’t seriously ship them with anyone else. like how do you approach the Spock Factor when you think about kirk and shipping? and vice versa. you know what i mean?

nOTP: Kirk/Spock/McCoy, I'm sorry, I just don't like it

random headcanon: he fidgets all the time, like with the hem of his shirt or his hair. also hes a totally history nerd.

unpopular opinion: hm. i guess a lot of people dont like Tarsus IV in fic or don't think it was as big as fic writers make it out to be, but i really like it and i think it had a profound impact on him. (im also just a sucker for a good backstory.)

song i associate with them: Oooh. I'll have to think on this one.

There doesn't have to be deliberate and conscious fabrication for something to be a lie. I think it was more of a case of "Paul will not be told" again but Paul applies this to himself just as much as he does everything else. He lies to himself constantly. In The Lyrics he references how he moved in with Jane because her mother "accidentally" overheard him talking about how much he hated the Mayfair condo -- except this is transparently because he made sure Jane's mother overheard him. He also frequently references how he appreciated her "motherliness" and to me the whole situation reads as Paul trying to engineer an escape from Mayfair because he found it oppressive and demeaning. Which is fair, but whether by accident or intention, he engineered a situation where he could escape into someone else's care instead of doing the grown up thing and finding a place to live by himself.

Paul would not characterize it that way but it doesn't change what happened: he was faced with the opportunity to act like a grown up and start making grown up decisions. He failed the test and immediately scurried to a nuclear family that he didn't know that well instead, trading on the pity of Jane's mother and the romantic attachment he and Jane formed. He wants us to believe otherwise and that it was somehow a normal thing for a young adult at that time to just move in with his 17 year old girlfriend's family, but that is so blatantly not the case. I think that if we could see for sure what Paul's surface beliefs are, we would see that he believes his own hype and that this was cool normal and good. But if he really believed that then he would simply fess up. He wouldn't dance around it with lies, especially the lies he tells himself.

I don't think Paul is some underwater 12 dimensional chessmaster engaging in a social experiment or anything. But I do believe that his entire life starting from the inception of the Beatles is based on lies -- mostly the lies that he tells himself, about himself. He's not deliberately fabricating anything (except when he's trying to protect the reputations of others.) He's just terrified of himself. And he will lie and lie and lie so that he doesn't have to face too many ugly truths about himself or the fundamental underpinnings of his character.

Which is a pity because if he did reach out to that truth then he would be a stronger person and he could free himself from his regrets. But Paul isn't willing to do that.

Their relationship was built on lies. Mostly the lies that Paul told to himself and others because of his desperate need to maintain a false shell that hides who he is.

Thank you! These are two of the questions I had thoughts on when I read the list :)

9. What do you think of Paul's lyrics?

I love Paul's lyrics. I have a growing suspicion that none of them are an easy rhyme or a cheesy cop-out, and that where it looks like that's what going on it's actually us failing to pick up what he's putting down.

There are a few lyrics that cut through me (see that poll that was going around recently), here's one that immediately comes to mind (I had The Pound Is Sinking on a loop this morning):

Hear me, my lover I can't be held responsible now For something that didn't happen Aw, it didn't happen Only for a minute Your heart just wasn't in it any more

I love when he is purposely ambiguous. In Little Lamb Dragonfly "we have a way to go" could be "there is a path open to us" or "there is a long distance ahead" (or both).

And the one that is currently top of my "I can't believe he did that" list (from Fuh You):

I could stay up half the night, playing with your head I could stay up half the night, but I'd rather go to bed

12. What do you think of Yoko's art?

I haven't given much time or attention to Yoko's art, but I have come to the conclusion that she is taking the piss 100% of the time. I think she wants you to take her seriously so that she can laugh at you behind her hand. And honestly that's a pretty interesting art project, that's she positioned herself well to pursue.

But yeah I hadn't heard most of the records until this year and frankly it's not one that makes me excited to go back to it. The early ones that get ragged on frequently have loads of stuff I hadn't heard before and give me something to think about in terms of where they were going and how they were developing. LiB also has stuff I hadn't heard before and it's okay? But in a way that just makes me wonder why they're not making Abbey Road instead.

Plus I just got Fiona to notice me and don't want to get into her bad books. (Kidding!)

Your point about the early stuff making you wonder about their career trajectory is super based. Whereas the songs on let it be just make you….sad? Because you know it’s all ending? Even one after 909 makes me sad despite being such a banger. It’s all so close to dissolving (or bursting into flames)

Also LOL. “Makes me wonder why they’re not making Abbey Road instead.” Very true. Like we KNOW y’all are still capable of great stuff why are you wasting away on dig a pony 😫😫