the one where the friend group are all nerds, and da-ge has cats
“A-Cheng is in the middle of playing ASTER1A 2!” Nie Huaisang pipes up, grinning. “You’ve played that too, right?”
Lan Zhan nods.
“He’s getting annoyed with Specter.” Nie Huaisang continues, sniggering. “But you like Specter, don’t you, Zhan-ge?”
Jiang Cheng doesn’t miss the way Lan Zhan’s careful resting bored face twitches just slightly.
Nie Huaisang welcomes Lan Zhan to the family after their brothers' engagement. Jiang Cheng tries to be nice. He really does, he swears.
📕 READ @ ao3.org/works/81013516
💖 my archive: lit.curiousest.net/read/rain-rain-days
Hey so I never got notes on a post as fast as the teaser for this, and I am sorry for taking a hundred years to follow through and hoping you won’t think I have massively overplayed my hand. John’s 1967-68 New Year’s trip to Morocco with Cynthia and actor friend Victor Spinetti is not one of the events in the Fandom Calendar as far as I can tell, I have never read a post or a meta or a fic about it (and believe me I have been putting the hyperfixation hours in since I watched Get Back last June…). I am now going to make the case that it ought to be!
NB, everyone who went on the Morocco trip has now died, so there will be no opportunities to ask follow-up questions, but ALL the opportunities to speculate wildly.
Cut goes here so as not to clog up all your dashes, the good stuff lies beneath:
So first, who is Victor Spinetti, what kind of book has he written and should we believe a word he says?
Victor Spinetti (1929-2012) was a Welsh actor who was prominent in the 1960s and to a lesser extent the 70s. He was cast in A Hard Day’s Night to play the TV director, a part sometimes considered as a Brian Epstein stand-in character. He’s fantastic in it as I’m sure you will agree. He was then cast in Help! As the mad scientist. He became friends with the boys to the point where he would sometimes drop in on recording sessions or go out with them in the evenings. At this point in our timeline he has just appeared in Magical Mystery Tour as the shouty Drill Sergeant.
What are my sources? Victor Spinetti’s autobiography ‘Up Front’, and the one man show I believe the book is based on which is called ‘A Very Private Diary’, and which he used to take to Edinburgh every year. In 1985 it was recorded and released that record is available on Spotify and YouTube. There are a few differences in the anecdotes between these two sources and I will get into them. I really recommend especially the stage show recording to get a sense of Vic as a person and the exuberance of his storytelling.
Now, it is a show that basically purports to spill the tea on all the mega-famous people he worked with in the 60s and 70s. Victor seems to enjoy positioning himself in between the megastars and the fans as a kind of go-between. Famously after having been in AHDN he went to New York with ‘Oh! What A Lovely War’ and was mobbed by Beatles fans, and responded by holding post-show seminars to tell the fans Beatles stories. The fans then made a Victor Spinetti fan club that Brian and the boys all ended up joining! The book and the show are somewhat in the same vein and truly he knew EVERYBODY — if you like stories about Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Lawrence Olivier, Marlene Dietrich, Peter Sellers, etc, in which Victor himself always emerges as a kind of everyman hero, do seek them out here!
Does Vic lie? Yes 100%, frequently, he was a (nonmonogamously partnered) gay man in the 60s, obviously he lied every day for survival. He also sometimes lies for effect, or to give his anecdotes a more fun punchline. Don’t we all? I would NOT recommend taking his book as gospel, as we will see he fabricated an entire anecdote about the Rolling Stones (NB: why???). But does he ALWAYS lie? Certainly not, many of his stories are corroborated by third party accounts — we will get into this also.
Now to the meat of the issue: Vic and John!
In this chapter he tells 2 John stories, one about taking John and Yoko to tea with Lawrence OIivier, and one about the trip to Marrakech. They are out of order, chronologically (unless John was taking Yoko to tea with Larry in ‘67, which, no he wasn’t). The story is that Vic persuaded John that since a play was being made out of his books, they ought to cowrite it.
The story begins thusly:
“Together, John and I worked on the play at the flat in Manchester Street. We were in the middle of writing – well we weren’t writing, we were listening to old 78s – when suddenly John said, ‘Eh, Vic, let’s go somewhere warm.’ I thought he meant another room but it wasn’t quite that. He picked up the phone and said, ‘Sorry, did I wake yer? Vic and I want to go somewhere warm.’ He looked up.
‘You got your passport?’ I nodded.
‘Yeah, he’s got his passport . . . Marrakech?’
I nodded again. ‘Yeah, we’ll go to Marrakech . . . OK, yeah . . . In about an hour? Yeah.’
‘An hour?’ I said, ‘Don’t we pack?’
‘No, we don’t take anything, just go.’
Well, being a Virgoan, I packed my toilet bag, so at least I had that with me. In the meanwhile John shot off to Weybridge to collect Cynthia, with whom he was still living, despite being seen around with Yoko. The next time I saw him, he and Cynthia were waiting at the airport in Paris, where together, we caught the plane for Casablanca. At Casablanca airport, a huge chauffeur-driven limo stood by. As we drove through the desert, only a few hours after leaving London, on our way to Marrakech, John started to sing. Using the rhythm of ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ he was making up a new song […].” P.255
They stayed at the (stunning, luxurious) Mamounia hotel, which yes there’s a Wings song about it, they stayed there too in the early 70s, as did the Stones in ‘68.
The J/P context for this trip is that at Christmas, Paul had announced to his family (and presumably the other Beatles??) his engagement to Jane Asher, having proposed in Scotland in December. This is presumably when she started wearing the ring she would later return. I can’t find a single press clipping with this announcement but it seems likely to me that John knew about it even if the fans were still left to hope! Source: McCartney.com
Also on Boxing Day, December 26th, Magical Mystery Tour was first shown on television (in black and white, famously), with Paul then being hauled in front of journalists to explain wtf the nation had just witnessed.
I can see both these events leading to John feeling like leaving the country could be a good move. There’s a lot of speculation about John’s emotional response to Paul’s engagement, and my read is that he was already primed by Brian’s death to feel abandoned and lost, and this will have triggered that even more. He’s not in a good place going on this holiday!
This trip happened, there are two photo from it here in which Vic does not feature, and they were witnessed by American writer John Hopkins at Talitha and David Getty’s New Year’s Eve party, as recorded in his Tangier Diaries: “Last night Paul and Talitha Getty threw a New Year's Eve party at their palace in the Medina. Paul McCartney and John Lennon were there, flat on their backs. They couldn't get off the floor let alone talk. I've never seen so many people out of control." — Paul certainly wasn’t there, but if everyone was as baked as they are in both this and Vic’s account, seeing John Lennon and a dark haired man lying on the floor and simply assuming it was Paul is a perfectly plausible thing for Hopkins to have done.
J. W. Lennon, Esq., M.B.E., Kenwood, Wood Lane, Cavendish Road, St George's Hill, Weybridge, Surrey.
At reception there were several messages waiting for John. One in particular caught his eye. ‘Vic, there’s a party being given tonight by some Gettys, y’know, and we’ll have to go, all right? Now be careful Vic, because they eat a lot o’ hash here and you’re not used to it.’ I said, ‘OK,’ and off we went to this party where they were indeed handing round bowls of – well it looked like mincemeat and tasted like when you lick the bowl after a Christmas pudding, that sort of flavour. I was really into this, eating away. ‘That was wonderful,’ I said, ‘Excuse me. I’ll have some more of that.’ And suddenly I was into Islamic Design! Round the room it spun. Amazing. I turned to where John’s head should have been but he was lying on the floor sick as a dog. (255)
Then he has a verifiably false anecdote about the Rolling Stones arriving at the hotel, Vic telling them John had flu, giving them Beechams powder and Brian Jones snorting it. The Rolling Stones were in Morocco in ‘67 but not at New Year’s. I wonder if any part of it is true, either different guests or a different time and location! My hunch is that the whole Beecham’s powder part is a decoy to distract from… the thing I’m just getting to.
“A couple of days later, [John] was feeling better. ‘Let’s go out somewhere, Vic,’ he said, ‘Perhaps we can go somewhere swinging, y’ know, where the action is.’ ‘OK,’ I said, ‘I’ll find out.’ Downstairs I went and said to the chauffeur: ‘Take me to where the action is.’ ‘OK,’ he said and ushered me into the limo. We drove to a bar. It was Ramadan, a time of strict fasting, so there were just these five women on a platform, huge women, yashmaks, caps with rings in them, going round and round, undulating to an accompaniment of wordless semitones. Minutes went by. They stopped, moved to another part of the platform and started again. This dance looked as if it would never end and all I had to drink was hot coca-cola. Hot, because I was frightened to add ice in case I caught something. To make conversation, I said to the chauffeur: ‘That one on the left has eyes a bit like Elizabeth Taylor.’ ‘I’m very sorry,’ he said, ‘I cannot get these women for you.’ ‘So, what goes in Morocco?’ I asked. His eyes lit up. ‘You are a true Moroccan. Come with me. We go to this other place.’ It was amazing. Everything was going on there and I had what I can only describe as an Arabian Night. Even now, just thinking about it, I get a stirring in the loins. The next day, I emerged, blinking, into the sunlight.” P.258
Sorry WHAT? Vic, what happened? An ‘Arabian night’ that continues to give you a ‘stirring in the loins’?!? We need DETAILS.
Then he has a stupid punchline about the chauffeur refusing to accept payment, that’s different between the audio and the book. The punchlines in this book tend to ring false, and not really to be the point of the story. In any case the part I want to highlight is this: Why didn’t John Lennon go on the night out he planned? And my answers are: heck yeah he went, he was ‘feeling better’ after all, and what was Vic doing on a solo night out with the chauffeur on his Best Friends John Lennon holiday?! Or indeed if Vic’s night out was a recce for a party with John, why is that second night completely unmentioned? Obv innocent explanations are available but I invite you to put on your yaoi glasses. This is a night of gay debauchery. Vic, who would not be interested in even the prettiest dancing girl, uses the phrase ‘stirring in the loins’. Presumably this is the kind of ‘Arabian night’ that waves of European gay men went to Tangier to experience. I.e. male sex workers were involved, probably young. Is the chauffeur himself queer to be plugged into the queer scene like this, or simply aware of a common reason for white men to be visiting Morocco?
(NB if his timeline is correct, Ramadan has actually just finished. Eid-Al-Fitr occurred on January 1st that year, but I can see why he would possibly misremember that it was around that time, it’s not a wild fabrication, just slightly muddled detail, and maybe his timeline for the whole NYE party-‘flu episode-night out narrative has been muddled on purpose)
My absolute most McLennon speculative lens that I can put on this is that John wanted to spend private time with Vic to ask and think about a queer life, and whether it would be possible for him to live one. And Vic (and the chauffeur) took him on a night out to remember. But ultimately it was just too complicated.
Though of course it remains possible that the ‘Arabian night’ is all Vic’s fantasy…
Postcard to the Starkeys from the three holidaymakers! (From Ringo’s ‘Postcards from the boys’ book)
And Cynthia? Alas she does not mention the trip in either of her books, and Vic (understandably if frustratingly) fails to centre her in his storytelling.
So there’s no evidence for this, but my speculation is that John took Cyn along so that he wasn’t on another solo holiday with a gay man. What I can find some evidence for is the increasing presence of Cyn’s mother, whom John didn’t get on with, at Kenwood at this time, which both means someone could look after Julian, and also that John might have thought getting away with Cyn on her own might feel more normal. Their nanny (Alfred Lennon’s 19 year old girlfriend) had just quit also.
There were quite a few on the Lennon household staff after John, Cynthia, and Julian moved to Kenwood in 1964. Most notably are Dorothy Jar
In addition John had been egregiously flirting with Pattie at the MMT launch in December so owed her some amends… I’m sure Cyn hoped to reconnect with John, rather as she hoped also for the India trip. Did this trip encourage or discourage those hopes? Did they chat, go sightseeing, shopping, have sex? Did she get sick? Was it mostly reading by the pool for Cyn? Did she come to the NYE party or the infamous night out? I hope she had a nice time whatever she got up to, she deserved it!
Reaper found himself lying around the dark reality he called home.
There was a dark… matter surrounding just about anything in that place. It was dense, cold and even had texture sometimes. You could see close to nothing- if you fully reached out your arm, you wouldn’t be able to see your hand anymore - it was pretty bad to walk around there unless you could float like the actual living residents. The only real illumination in this void came from the SOULs the two grim reapers brought there, but it didn’t do much service…
Reaper didn’t mind it that much, though - it was just perfect for naps. But sure as hell it was boring besides that - Life’s garden was much better in that aspect - he adored laying on the grass she carefully cultivated, even if it died after a while resting on it…
He shifted on the small…not even himself was sure of how to call it - one day he found a very dense part of whatever that reality was made of and just decided to use it as a kind of bean bag and so was it - though it wasn’t as soft as the grass from the secret garden and his brother didn’t like the fact he found a way to be lazy in their own dimension…
He was tired. He hated the fact that his job wasn’t as simple and chill as his counterparts… He couldn’t just skip some hours of work and dedicate it to just doing nothing…
Everyday he had to face other people enjoying their lives, being happy and just enjoying being alive and his job was only to make it harder for everyone…
He didn’t want to go see Life. She would tell Papyrus if she ever noticed that… welp. What she could notice didn’t matter to anyone, not even Reaper himself.
He managed to somehow get some free time to enjoy what he loved to do the most - sleeping. He had neither dreams nor nightmares in his sleep, but it was a good sleep regardless.
Lately things were too difficult for him to just take a nap - so many people going after their passion of killing others at the same time - it was terrible even for the grim reaper’s standards - so he had to cherish that moment of peace as much as he could.
…
“SANS!!!”
Huh.
“YOU LAZY BONES! WAKE UP!!!!”
Reaper opened his eyes. Had he been sleeping the entire time…?
“SANSSSSSSSS!” his brother screamed, “GET UP FROM YOUR BLACK MATTER-BASED BODY SIZED PILLOW!!! I NEED YOUR HELP!”
The smaller skeleton got up. He wore a casual smile on his face as he looked up at Papyrus, “what’s the matter, paps? you look like you saw a ghost.”
“I DO NOT!! HAVE PATIENCE TO DEAL WITH YOUR PUNS TODAY!!!” the taller skeleton said exasperatedly, “I NEED YOUR HELP!”
Reaper tilted his head curiously. His brother seemed clearly disturbed, but being honest, that kind of reaction was fairly common for him to have...
It didn’t make things less intriguing, though.
“oh, yeah?”
Papyrus sighed in distress, “AS MUCH AS IT HURTS FOR ME TO ADMIT!!! I CAN’T DO MY JOB AS PERFECTLY AS BEFORE!!! I AM A SHAME TO OUR FAMILY!! YOU WILL HAVE TO DISOWN ME!!!!”
Curious, but still very vague. His smile grew wider, “what happened?”
“IT WAS TERRIBLE, SANS!!!” the other cried out, “I TRIED TO CATCH THE SMALL SOUL OF AN UNFORTUNATE BEING AND I JUST COULDN’T!!!”
Reaper frowned, being reminded of bad memories, “did you hesitate?”
“NO!!! BROTHER HOW COULD YOU THINK OF ME SO LOWLY??? THOUGH AFTER WHAT HAPPENED I WOULDN’T ARGUE AGAINST THAT ACCUSATION…”
“just tell me what happened, papyrus.”
“THE SOUL DIDN'T LIKE THE FACT THEIR FATE BROUGHT THEM TO THEIR END!!! I TRIED TO COMFORT THEM BUT THEY RAN AWAY!!!”
“I JUST!! I DID MY BEST TO TAKE THEM!!!” he continued, “BUT THEY JUST REFUSE TO ACCEPT FATE!!!”
The smaller skeleton sighed. That situation was oddly awful, but not much different than things he had already dealt with in the past. They could have been talking about a new threat as dangerous as they were…
“YOUR FACE TELLS ME YOU KNOW WHAT I’M FEARING!!! AS MUCH AS I HATE IT, I NEED YOUR HELP!!!”
“is it really that bad for you to consider asking for my help, huh?”
“NOW I DIDN’T SAY IT!!! YOU ARE A REALLY SKILLED GRIM REAPER BESIDES YOUR CHRONIC LAZINESS!!!! AND I DON’T SAY THAT ONLY BECAUSE YOU ARE MY BROTHER AND THE ONLY OTHER GRIM REAPER I KNOW!!!!”
Reaper couldn’t help but laugh at his brother’s defense, “welp. what kind of a monster would i be if i didn’t help my lil’ bro?”
“THANKS SANS!!!” Papyrus hugged him, “MY HAPPINESS IS SO BIG THAT I WILL FORGIVE YOUR TERRIBLE PUN THIS TIME!!!”
Reaper’s job wasn’t the most delightful… but he couldn’t ignore it, especially when someone as dedicated as Papyrus was having trouble with it… could he?
Next
Reaper Sans, Reaper Papyrus and Life Toriel by renrink
Something something… that Shinji post… something something…
I have seen many analysts and interpretations on Shinjis character but there is one aspect of his character that I have not seen anyone mention: his raging misogyny
Since the death of his mother Shinji has not had a close relationship with anyone and this shapes the way he views the people around him. He has a somewhat healthy relationship with his male friends but it is clear that he does not really understand his friends or how friendships even works.
Shinjis relationships with the three mane girls, Misato, Rei and Asuka, are very important to the show. These are the characters he most longs to be close with and pushes away the most. Because Shinji grew up without a mother or any other close female family member, he cannot se relationships with women as platonic, he can only se them as what society has conditioned him to se, sexual. It is clear Shinji desires something from these girls, the same thing he desires from everyone to be seen and loved, but his stupid 14 year old boy brain misinterpreted this as sexual desire, both because he doesn’t se women as entirely human but also because being horny is a lot less scary than wanting to be truly loved for who you are. Both Shinji and Asuka project their parental issues both onto each other and onto Misato, Asukas need to prove herself and Shinjis need to be accepted. During the show they do both often act as if romantically interested in each other but I believe they are simply convinced, as most young teens are, that romance is the height of validation. Shinji is also desperate for Reis validation because she reminds him of his mother and his deep jealousy of her for receiving his father’s validation, Shinji is desperate to be seen by his father and maybe if he is acknowledged by someone who is acknowledged by his father then he will be victoriously accepted in some way.
There are two scenes that I feel exemplify this diconance between Shinjis true desires and view of women. The first is when Shinji and eva 1 have been consumed by leliel, we see clips of Misato, Rei, Asuka and Shinjis mother trying to convince him to become one with them. Shinjis mother is obscured in shadow, motherly love is only a concept to him. And the three who Shinji actually knows are very much not like themselves they are all making the same face and saying the same thing in the same tone. This scene also implies that “becoming one” is somewhat sexual. The other is after death of Rei ii when Misato is trying to comfort Shinji. At first viewing I thought Misato was making a sexual advance on him, I believe the scene is purposefully framed for this interpretation, but I don’t believe that this is Misatos intention. This is how Shinji misinterprets this moment because he doesn’t understand human affection.
The dehumanizing of others that comes with oppression always comes with a dehumanization of the self, a threat that if you are not the oppressor you will be the oppressed. Shinji cannot grow as a person because he cannot accept that the woman in his life are just as human as himself. And because he cannot except that not treating them as such makes him a terrible person.
In the show ending of evangelion Shinji internally confronts his fears and weaknesses excepting himself and by extension those around him. In the movie ending of evangelion on the other hand Shinji is forced to confront that what he thinks he desires for Asuka, Misato and Rei is not actually what he desires. Shinji believes that what he desires is sexual gratification, romance and “becoming one”. When Shinji masterbates over Asukas comatosed body in the hospital he receives what he thinks he wants from her, looking at her boobs and beating his meat. And yet when he’s done, both Shinji and the audience are left with a feeling of dread and emptiness, this is not what Shinji wanted from Asuka. Misato kisses Shinji on the mouth in order to bribe him into piloting the eva one last time, i and many other eva fans dislike this because we dislike grown women kissing children. I personally do not believe that Misato would ever kiss Shinji in this way but Shinji cannot grow in the way he does in the movie unless he is confronted with the fact that he does not want this from Misato. But Shinji does also receive something else from Misato, her cross necklace, the one that her father gave her before he died, and just like then this represents a parental sacrifice as this is just before Misato dies. Shinji keeps the cross with him for the rest of the movie because it is what he actually wanted from Misato. And finally Rei causing human instrumentality offers Shinji to become one with her and all of humanity. Being one, without distends between people, without misunderstanding, without pain. This is what both Shinji and his father believed they desire most, and when Shinji finally receives it it is not what he wants. instead of becoming one with Rei he chooses to symbolically make a human connection, taking her hand as two separate beings.
And when Shinji has finally grown and accepted others and himself, he is confronted with Asuka. And for a moment all his growth washes away. He strangles her, maybe he cannot handle the guilt of seeing her after what he has done, maybe he is trying to prove that he knows Asuka, and that she will react the same as (maybe imagine Asuka) when they fought inside human instrumentality.
But instead of reaching like Shinji and the audience has come to expect from Asuka, she gently touches his face and tells him that he is disgusting. Confronting Shinji one final time with the humanity of others and himself.
I don’t believe this interpretation to be intentional at all considering the way this franchise treats its underage female characters
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
"Why don't I give you one, then?"
It takes BJ a moment to catch up. "A…"
"A fantasy," Hawk replies. "If you have to save all that mental energy for doctoring later."
"You tell me a fantasy," BJ says softly, suddenly so conscious of the thin state of their tent walls. "And I take care of my little situation?"
Hawk hums as he shrugs. "Hey, what you do with it is up to you. I'm only running my mouth."
~~~
Weeks after an unexpected passionate encounter with Hawkeye in Seoul, BJ struggles to figure out why Hawk seems to be so uncertain about picking up a casual sexual relationship with him—just friends burning off steam. But when Hawkeye suddenly offers to narrate an erotic fantasy for BJ, the rules of the game they're playing begin to rapidly shift.
This is the first sequel to my hunnihawk fic, Scratching The Itch, and the second story in my series spanning the show and post-war, Some Things Are Evergreen! Thank you all for waiting for it, and I hope y'all enjoy!
