Fanfic / With Strings Attached

"Don't worry," said John, "we've already brought the gods back, we're the gods of rock 'n' roll, remember?"

"Do a miracle and send us home, then," said Ringo.

"Sorry, I've used up me quota. Fuck!" John threw his seashell towards the ocean as hard as he could with his left hand, then sat up fully. "I don't care what our mission is. I resent bein' dropped here without so much as a `Would you like to go?' I may not even do whatever we're supposed to do, if we do have a job. We might not, y'know. Maybe some fuckin' Beatlemaniac just thought `Eh, wouldn't it be a lark to put the Beatles on another planet and see what they do.' Well, this one's not gonna do anythin', so fuck you!" John shouted at the sky, giving it the finger.

With Strings Attached, or The Big Pink Job is possibly the most famous single Beatles Real-Person Fic out there, and certainly one of the oldest known. Aviva Rothschild, who wrote the first-ever bibliography of graphic novels, started writing Strings in 1980 at the age of 15 and completed it in early 2009. It has been online since 1997 and is so well established that there was a brief period when, if you googled the common phrase that is the main title, it would come up first. Half the story is available on Rational Magic, the author's website, and the entire work can be purchased as a downloadable PDF or a thick paperback book (commonly referred to by the author as the Big Pink Brick).

Strings is a serious (if frequently hilarious) epic fantasy—no Slash Fic, no Time Travel, no romance, no Alternate History. It's spring 1980, and the four ex-Beatles awaken on the strange planet C'hou, terrified out of their minds, sixteen years younger, and utterly clueless as to why they're there. As they struggle to make sense of their predicament, they must survive the dangers of two very different countries: Ketafa, a quasi-Victorian theocracy based on a fake religion, and Baravada, a dying magical anarchy whose inhabitants' fondest wish is to find monsters to kill. Observing all this are some quite fannish aliens, whose dialogue punctuates and clarifies much of what's going on, and who have their own little dramas taking place as events spin rapidly out of their control.

Ultimately, the four are spectacularly equipped to embark upon a quest that, if successful, will remove a curse that prevents the real gods from seeing Ketafa. Careering through three crazy universes (including a Funny day on an alternate Earth that combines Beatlemania, New York City, Xanth, and Harvey), they collect the three scattered pieces of the Vasyn, a statue that is the (sub)titular Big Pink Job. But restoring the Vasyn to Ketafa will be the most dangerous task facing them....

Notable for, among other things, its portrayal of the four ex-Beatles as real people, not as any of their fictional personas, who undergo genuine Character Development as the story progresses. Also notable for being a rare fantasy where the main characters are essentially Actual Pacifists.

Rothschild completed the first half of the sequel, The Keys Stand Alone (circa 2015); its first chapter is available on her website.

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This lengthy work encompasses a huge number of tropes, the most significant examples of which are:

• Actual Pacifist: The four. They never initiate fights - in fact, they avoid conflict when possible - and while three of them do deal some minor damage to people in revenge for having been badly abused, none of them would dream of seriously hurting any living thing. The irony, of course, is that collectively they have been gifted with enough power to wipe out a city before breakfast.
• Anal Probing: Discussed in the prologue when Varx is trying to convince Paul to go on a "great adventure".
  Paul: Is this one of those alien abductions where you're gonna probe me, then?
  Varx (snorting): Gods, you Eartians are masochists. Believe me, if we really wanted that info, which we don't, we could do a deep scan right from our own universe and you'd never know it happened.
• Artifact of Doom: Two of them: The Heart of Evil and Blackfire, the Hunter's BFS, though the Hunter doesn't think the latter is evil. He is disabused of that notion eventually.
• Background Magic Field: The universe that contains the planet C'hou is permeated by a Field of raw magic that people can learn to shape, or, in rare cases, are genetically able to manipulate without special education (i.e., Psychic Powers).
• Badass Unintentional: The four have no interest in combat or adventure. However, after being Touched by Vorlons, they get maneuvered into that stuff. And they're now rather good at it. Their opponents are damned lucky the four are Actual Pacifists.
• Bag of Holding: A variant comes with George's "closet". He basically figured out a loophole with his transformation abilities where transforming into himself with or without the object allows him to pull things from or put things into a pocket dimension. The only living thing he's put in there is a potted plant, and he's not sure he wants to try with animals or people.
• Berserk Button: Harm an animal, or one of the others, around Paul, and he may quite violently stop being an Actual Pacifist... though he has such a horror of hurting anyone that it's not too hard to talk him down. In fact, it seems likely that any of the four will discover a Berserk Button if their True Companionship is threatened.

• Big Eater: John's magic from his initial transformation uses so much energy, he constantly has to eat large portions of food to keep himself functioning. Part of why he's Blessed with Suck.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Four manage to return the Vasyn to Ketafa, but they are later informed that they can't take their magic home with them. Whereas John and Paul are pleased because they were fretting about returning to Earth as Blessed with Suck, Ringo is devastated, because he was profoundly transformed by his magic and had all kinds of plans for using it. He ends up clinging to the hope that the four will be given a chance to use it again in the future, making this a rare book where the characters actually ask for a sequel.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • John has complete control over water and the body of a winged god; but he also has to eat constantly, has ears so sensitive that he folds up in pain at shrill sounds that don't bother other people, and, worst of all, is no longer human, so he's no longer sexually attracted to human women.
  • Paul is so ridiculously strong that he can barely move without causing chaos. Never does he dare have sex. Oh, and neither of them can go home as is...
  • George: He's got a ring that lets him become anything... but it also sticks once in a while, filling him with terror that he might get stuck permanently as something else.
• Brainwashed: The whole point of Brox's Kiss. Both John and Paul get Kissed, with varying results.

• Death Is Cheap: As'taris dies and is resurrected in half a page.

  Death is cheap, life is expensive.

• Does Not Know His Own Strength: Paul practices endlessly and still breaks stuff if he doesn't watch himself every moment.
• Dying Town: Ta'akan became increasingly abandoned due to the restless Baravadans going to search for things to fight out of boredom.
• Dystopia: Baravada, at least from the Baravadans' POV. The four feel rather differently about it.
• Elseworld: The Beatles on another planet. Yup, that fits.
• Face–Heel Turn: Jeft, after Jim Hunter becomes friends with the four.
• The Faceless: The Fans. Actually aliens who describe themselves as “kinda lizardy, kinda birdy,” they use default faceless humanoid computer avatars when dealing with the four, and they're never even shown to the reader. Hints of their true appearance come out in their dialogue, e.g., “Ow! My tail!”
  • Except Jeft, whose brief description by the other two suggests he is a fat Grey with poor hygiene.
  • Also the god Ardav, who is a bland sexless humanoid who cannot be remembered except as a faceless mannikin.
• Faint in Shock: John faints when he sees himself in the mirror for the first time and realizes that he's grown wings. He'd kind of worked himself up to it, given that he'd awakened in a strange bed, starving to death, with a growing panicky awareness that something was terribly, terribly wrong with him...

• Functional Magic: Lots and lots and lots.
  • Inherent Gift—very rare (all the in-book examples are from outside the universe).
  • New Zork is almost nothing but Inherent Gift, except for a couple of spells, like silence, that are “commercially available.”
  • Alchemy. “God bless healing potions!”
  • Force Magic—the wizards of C'hou tap into the kvar, or Field, the raw magic that surrounds everything; they weave it through their bodies and any “spellfuel,” then release it to do whatever. They don't always succeed, either. Paul has learned three spells this way.
  • Device Magic, ranging from household magic (e.g., glowstones) to useful adventurers' things like self-propelled boats to legendary relics like the Kansael.
  • The Hunter relies exclusively on Device Magic, but there are other forms in his world.

• Gotta Catch Them All: The quest involves retrieving the three scattered pieces of the Vasyn.
• Groupie Brigade: In the New Zork chapter, the four turn a corner and unexpectedly come face to face with a line of kids waiting to win free “Beagles” tickets. (Keep in mind, it's 1954, so they're hardly expecting to be recognized.) Given their various means of escape, Ringo gets the worst of it by far, being thrown off a garage roof by a fan trying to get him down to his friends. And the Groupie Brigade stuff doesn't end there:
  • Although Ringo escapes those fans by accidentally teleporting to the Plaza Hotel, he gets trapped there because it's under siege by more fans.
  • Paul manages to lure the Groupie Brigade around the Plaza into swamping the “Hitler Youth” trying to detain him, because one of them is wearing a “Beagle” wig.
  • When John leads the harveys in their peaceful protest, they're surrounded by fans, but he's protected by layer upon layer of giant rabbits.

• How Do I Shot Web?: The four struggle with their magic when they first get them, especially Paul, and they undergo a continual learning process throughout the book.
• Humiliation Conga: Jeft First, the Hunter ends up befriending the four rather than fighting them. Then the five of them destroy one of Jeft's pet places of evil, the Plains of Death and its associated Heart of Evil (which is very expensive). Then he sees some of his best and toughest baddies easily and quickly neutralized with no danger to anyone. Then the Hunter manages to throw his mind-controlling BFS over a cliff and escape Jeft's clutches entirely. Finally, Shag and Varx inform him that they've ratted on him to the Dalns gods, prompting an Oh, Crap! moment and his quick exit from the book.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Paul goes through several chapters of this when the other three all get magic dumped on them, but he doesn't get any.

• Jerkass Gods: The Dalns gods, though apparently only in the past.

• Making a Splash: John gains complete control over water, thanks to the magical Kansael that embedded itself in his chest. Being an Actual Pacifist, he doesn't do much more than play with it (though he did some pretty heavy-duty undead ass-kicking in the Plains of Death), but in several places, it's implied that he could be incredibly scary if he did some of the things the Kansael suggested to him. He seems to have some degree of control over the weather as well.
• Medieval Stasis: Baravada has completely stagnated, technology-wise (though they are rife with magic), and the inhabitants brush off inventions as "tinkerings".
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: George's ring allows him to transform into any animal he can imagine, but becoming that animal also causes him to gain the senses, instincts and tastes of that particular creature. A few times, he has to exert his own will to keep from doing something inappropriate, like eating something (or someone) he's not supposed to.
• Mind over Matter: Ringo. Extraordinarily powerful, inasmuch as, by using his TK in conjunction with his mindsight, he has incredibly precise control and can reach at least a hundred miles with it. It does not tire him out to use it. His upper level of strength is not known, but he can toss people around and move them very rapidly. One limitation he has is that he must constantly concentrate on an item to keep it moving, and his concentration fails after 5-7 seconds, or if he's terrified, or if he's being jounced around. Still, he can do a lot in 5-7 seconds.
• Muggles: The non-Idris in Ketafa, who are derisively referred to as "fodder"; and the tirin in Baravada, except they're just as mean and annoying as the skahs, and occasionally nearly as lethal. They're also far more content with their lot than the skahs are.
• The Multiverse: The story takes place in or mentions at least six different universes, and Jeft refers to existence as the Infiniverse.
• Mundane Utility: The four dick around with their magic a lot.
• The Nicknamer: The four really go to town with this trope. They also attract their fair share of nicknames.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Paul needs it, since he's holding a shitload of energy inside him and would explode quite thoroughly without it. He is literally Made of Diamond; his hair, nails, and teeth are either diamond or diamond-like. Presumably his bones are diamond too. He has so far been invulnerable to most everything, including dragon fire, but he has no resistance to intangible things like wraiths, and the Hunter's BFS once cut him just enough to draw blood.
• Night of the Living Mooks: The epic battle on the Plains of Death.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: We repeat—the premise of this story is the Beatles on another planet with super powers.
• Nobody Poops: Averted on a number of occasions, including right at the beginning, when John and Paul have to stop to pee.
• Not Using the "Z" Word: The word "Beatles" rarely appears in the narrative; the author refers to them as "the four". Almost the only time the name appears is when one of the four makes a sardonic or angry reference to it, or when one of the Fans mentions it.
• Older Than They Look: The four have been rendered sixteen years younger, so they look like young twenty-somethings rather than the nearly 40-year-old men they are. This affects the way a bunch of people treat them, occasionally to their benefit.
• Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The Fans, initially. Except only Jeft wants to be vague; the others want to be helpful and informative.
• Omniscient Morality License: The Fans. Even though she loves the four, Shag thinks nothing of dropping them into a dangerous environment, completely unprepared and ignorant of everything.
• Orphaned Series: The author, who began it in 1980 and who started posting it in 1997, gave it up in 2002 after her personal life imploded (mother had Alzheimer's, laid off from her job, etc.). She never thought she would finish it, but in early 2009 she was hit by literary lightning, wrote 300 pages in 3 weeks, and finished the thing.
• Personal Raincloud: John acquires one after he gains the Kansael. The cloud changes with his mood; the stormier it is, the angrier he is.
• Physical God:
  • Ardav, one of the Dalns gods. What this gender-less god's powers are is unknown, except that it can bring people to its home dimension, and that anyone who speaks to it cannot remember what it looks like.
  • John sardonically refers to the four as the gods of rock 'n' roll. Given how powerful the four become after receiving their powers, this also counts as Tempting Fate.
• Power Incontinence: Paul. At his highest level of strength, he is so powerful he can barely walk without causing chaos. He has practiced literally day and night to get to the point where he can at least walk around, but he has to keep constant watch on himself, keep his arms at his sides, etc. And to revert to his more manageable lower level of strength, he has to explode, creating a large glassy crater and pretty much wiping out everything around him. But even at "low" strength he has to fiercely regulate his behaviour.
• The Power of Rock: Subverted in that the four play music a few times with no supernatural effect, and even sneer a bit at the notion that their music may be magical.

• Real-Person Fic: One of the earliest real person fics to be widespread across the early days of the internet, probably the Ur-Example of a completed multi-chapter fic at that. It also has a rarity of being published in a sellable format.
• The Reveal: Several huge ones.
  • The first comes when Jeft reveals to Shag and Varx that he, not the Dalns gods, was the force behind the Vasyn quest. He set the whole thing up just to see the four in action and ultimately to have them go up against his favorite gaming character, Jim Hunter.
  • The second comes when everyone learns there is no curse on Ketafa — even Jeft believed it — and the gods could see the continent all along, but told everyone there was a curse on it so they didn't have to spend money "godding" it. The actual effect of the Vasyn is to end the reign of the Dalns gods and turn the planet over to the Pyar gods. Whether this is a Good Thing is explored in the sequel.

• Shapeshifter Mode Lock: George, on occasion. This is due to a design flaw in his ring that causes him to stay stuck in one form at critical moments. He gets stuck as a pigeon in New Zork and is not happy about it; he uses his ring more cautiously for a time after it happens.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: The story ranges from wide-eyed wonder to exhausted cynicism. Which, one might say, mirrors the Beatles' real story.
• Sufficiently Advanced Aliens: Shag and Varx are of some “lizardy, birdy” race with technology sufficiently advanced to shuffle people from one dimension to another for an undergraduate class project, to bestow people with considerable power, and to maneuver those people into annoying situations. Jeft, who is a Grey, pretends he's a god, but the others are quick to distance themselves from that definition.
• Super-Senses: John has very acute hearing now, with its attendant problems.
• Super-Strength: Paul. He has two levels of power: “low,” where he can lift about 15,000 lbs., and “high,” whose upper limit is unknown, but greater than 90 tons. Both levels give him proportional Power Incontinence. He doesn't find a whole lot of use for his strength, since he's an Actual Pacifist.
  • John is also fairly strong, able to knock someone out with one punch or break a door down with one kick.
• Teleportation:
  • All of the skahs wizards can do it.
  • Ringo teleports when he gets a sudden shock, back to the last safe location he'd seen or been. Once he teleported more than 400 miles away from his original location.
  • The continent of Armia on the Hunter's world has many different portgates to take travelers all over the place.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: The four are committed to this stance, to the point of having to get really creative to solve a problem because the opponent's death is not an option.
• Touched by Vorlons: The four (more like slammed by Vorlons).
• Trapped in Another World: The Four are scooped up and dropped on the planet C'hou with nothing except the clothes on their backs and some musical instruments; they're terrified out of their minds and have absolutely no idea why they're there.
• Villainous Breakdown: Jeft and, later, Kerrun.

• Walk on Water: John, as part of his Making a Splash and An Ice Person skills. ("Look at me! Look at me! I'm Jesus!")
• Winged Humanoid: John is turned into one by the Fans in order to prevent something worse from happening. Has big white and blue feathered wings. Humanoid now, not just a human with wings, and magic-based, which explains why he can fly. In fact, if he went back to the magic-free Earth in this body, he would instantly die. Ouch. And he can't float; he has to glide or flap to stay airborne.
  • Though he's never seen molting and never mentions it... of course, during the book, he only has the wings for about three months.
  • In the New Zork chapter, Ringo meets John's “Beagle” counterpart, who has small, useless wings “only good for attractin' birds,” heh.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: A comedic example: At the beginning, Paul theorizes that if they've been forcibly reunited, turned into their younger selves from their collective heyday and supplied with instruments, whoever did it probably wants them to play together. They give it a shot, despite being in a stressful situation and not having played together in a decade. They suck.

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