Pointless McSutcliffe

YELLOW SUBMARINE

Paul and John are equally obsessed with Stuart, in opposite ways. John's fascinated with his art and his ideas, Paul is quite suspicious of his intentions. He caught sight of the pepper losing color at his feet, something he's seen no one but the Meanies do. But they're peaceful now, and Stu looks nothing like them. Who is that man? What is he doing by himself, painting away while the soil under his feet turns grey?

Paul even starts thinking Stuart might be stealing his pigments from the world around him, worries he might try to take the colors off John, leave him cold and soulless.

So obviously when John suggests to go visit Stu again, Paul blatantly forbids him from doing so, listing all his theories and suspicions. John laughs him off, reassuring him he's worrying way too much, and goes off anyways. And Paul follows him, bass in hand, ready to fight Stu with music if he must.

So, John and Paul go to find Stu, still decorating around and humming to himself. He seems actually surprised that they'd want to come back.

Since he's constantly draining color, he's also constantly painting, not catching a break, not that he cares. When inspiration lacks, he just lets paint drop and splatter off his brushes. That works too. And music, but he's not that good at playing or singing.

John and his logical, scientific mind enjoy Stuart's rhetoric questions and his worries over the meaning of everything, while Paul just sits there feeling rather bored. He wonders if it's Stu's dull personality what makes things grey.

The conversation turns to music, to which Stu admits not being so good at. John pressures him to hear a song, even taking Paul's bass from him and shoving it towards Stuart to hear what he sounds like.

Paul's clearly mad but John doesn't seem to notice or at least care. Stuart just does as asked, plays a soft Elvis song, and at the end John claps but Paul scoffs. He wasn't joking when he said he wasn't good. Paul rips the bass off his hands, blurts out some rather mean things about how bad he is and how he should stick to painting since it's clearly the only thing he can do right, amongst other cruelties, all while Stuart shrinks further into himself, the land around him turning greyer and greyer. Once he's done, Paul turns on his heels and walks the way back to Pepperland, rather sick.

John sticks around to try and make Stu feel better, with little success. He makes apologies for his friend, saying he's just tired and jealous and Stu shouldn't listen to him. Stuart insists it's not even the first time it happens, explains to John his whole deal, and quietly requests to be left alone, as he usually is. John only complies when he notices his own jacket losing color slowly.

Back at Pepperland, Paul is still fuming, trying to make his bass return to its normal shade, since Stu drained a bit from it. He mutters and curses under his breath, grumbling that if John likes that lad so much maybe he should give him the bass playing spot and he can just quit, mean stuff like that.

John finds him and pretty much pulls him by the ears, giving him a stern lecture on manners and stuff. Paul groans, these things usually go backwards. He's the one that should be lecturing John over whatever thing he did wrong, not the other way. But alas, here they are.

Once John's done, he tells him to go apologize to Stu next day, something Paul refuses over and over. John even threatens to kick him out of the band and Paul just yells at him to do so already, since he clearly prefers Stuart anyways. Stomps away really mad and all that tantrum stuff.

Anyways, the next few days Paul makes a point of avoiding John, not wanting to give in and admit he did something bad. He's just being a fucking child, honestly, and when John tells George and Ringo they agree on that.

Things are awfully tense, and one day they wake up to notice Pepperland is greying at the edges.

Paul immediately knows it's Stu's doing. Who else would it be? The Meanies are all chilling with everybody else, colorful as can be.