Lennell

"I never stopped loving John, but the cost of that love has been enormous. Someone asked me recently whether, if I’d known at the beginning what lay ahead, I would have gone through with it. I had to say no. Of course I could never regret having my wonderful son. But the truth is that if I’d known as a teenager what falling for John Lennon would lead to, I would have turned round right then and walked away."

- Cynthia on John

Lennell is the het ship between John Lennon and Cynthia Powell from The Beatles fandom.

Canon
John and Cynthia had met in art college, where John was sitting behind her in lettering class. The two were remarkably different, with Cynthia being a student that focused heavily on grades while John was a troublemaker who was placed in the class because other teachers had refused to have him. They also looked differently, with Cynthia appearing in neat clothes while John wore scruffy Teddy Boy outfits. John instantly started nicknaming Cynthia things like “Miss Prim” and “Miss Powell” due to her posh accent and smart clothing. Despite John’s attitude, Cynthia was drawn to him, envying how he could laugh about anything he wanted.

They soon began to realise their similarities, including their shortsightedness. After this realisation, they started talking more, and Cynthia quickly learnt of John’s group, the Quarrymen. Halfway through the term, when Cynthia was starting to have romantic feelings for John, he played Ain’t She Sweet, which caused Cynthia to blush and run out. She started to suspect that he might be interested in her as well. When Cynthia learnt about John’s celebrity crushes, she opted to mimic them in clothing and hair colour, which caused John to laugh and tease her playfully.

Soon before the school holidays, there was a party just before the break up. Cynthia went along, not suspecting to encounter John, but saw him come into the room. He walked over and asked her to dance, which she went to do. During the dance, John asked if she wanted to go out with him. Flustered, Cynthia accidentally blurted out that she was engaged, despite it not being true, and she was just in a relationship with a person she knew. John snapped that he didn’t ask her to marry him and walked off.

The two ran into each other at the pub later that night, where John started playfully teasing Cynthia, the two connecting briefly. The two left almost immediately and kissed, before hanging out for the rest of the night. Afterwards, John declared that he would be calling her Cyn from now on. Heading to the train station to catch Cynthia’s last train, John asked what she would be doing. Cynthia replied that she would be seeing him.

After Cynthia came back from her family holiday, the two met in a cafe and gazed into each other’s eyes for two hours in total. Their spare time was all spent together, and spent their money on fares, lunch, John’s cigarettes, and pints from the pub. If they had more money than usual, they went to the films together. John started asking Cynthia to put him before anything else, which resulted in bad work. Sometimes when they went for a drink at lunchtime, John would suggest that they bunked off for the afternoon, and would spend that time at the beach.

John would become violent, however, when another boy was around Cynthia. One time, a boy asked her to dance with him, and before she could reply, John threw himself at him. Despite how many times Cynthia tried to reassure John that she would have said no, he kept being provoked to violence. One time it escalated too far, when Cynthia had went to dance with John’s friend Stuart. John, convinced that something was happening, hit her and ran off. Cynthia ended the relationship and became determined not to talk to him. Three months past before John phoned Cynthia and apologised. The two came back together.

John’s music life became more and more important, and Cynthia supported him. Some days before John travelled to Hamburg, the two had a small photo session where they took pictures of each other, and afterwards sat in front of the TV, lighting a fire. The two got lucky and spent the night together since John’s aunt Mimi wouldn’t be back until the next morning.

The two wrote a lot of letters while John was in Hamburg. John wrote almost every day, the letters being around ten pages long, and were covered with cartoons, poems, kisses, and messages. Cynthia, meanwhile, sent photographs and more smaller letters. Cynthia started to get worried when John kept mentioning another girl, Astrid, in his letters, and was relieved when she realised that Astrid liked Stuart instead of John.

As soon as John got back, the two went to the store and brought a coat. The coat, being mildly expensive, ended up in a shouting match between John and Mimi, the former leaving the house and walking away from the situation, saying to Cynthia that Mimi got riled up over anything.

The next time John went to Hamburg, Cynthia was brought along. She was surprised by how different everything was, and fighting was common - which made John smile a bit. When John saw that Paul had brought his girlfriend Dot engagement bands, John jokingly suggested to Cynthia that they got engaged.

Everything seemed to get better - John and the rest of his band The Beatles had got a management deal, and the band was also signing a contract deal with a record company, much to Cynthia’s surprise and delight. However, Cynthia also fell pregnant. After telling John, the two went silent for a couple of moments, before John said that they would have got get married.

The two married shortly afterwards at the register office. Afterwards, they went to a restaurant. They quickly enjoyed being married, with John even helping to get furniture. Brian gave them a flat to live in, but after several rough meetings, Cynthia moved in with Mimi, much to John’s worry. Three days after the baby was born, John visited. Together they named their new son John Charles Julian, to be known as Julian. John worried about whether or not Julian was a cissy name, but decided on it. The two were devoted parents for the first few weeks.

John’s quickly growing fame, however, meant that he had to spend less time in the house. One of John’s songs, “All My Loving”, was written with Cynthia in mind. John tried to come home whenever he could, but the growing fanbase made it almost impossible. One August, John declared that they were going for a belated honeymoon. The three day honeymoon was rather elegant and spectacular, and the two enjoyed it.

Again, it became harder for the two to see each other, so most communication was done through letters and phone calls. Rarely they would have the chance to meet up. In future years, they would manage to meet up more and more, with John happily looking after Julian alongside Cynthia. After John started taking LSD, Cynthia started to worry more and more what would happen to their relationship.

It started to go mainly downhill when an acquaintance of John that he had met at an exhibition, Yoko, had sent him books and letters, and she considered it a bit on the strange side. She didn’t think much of it at the time, and just thought it was friendly correspondence. The correspondence became more rapid overtime, and Cynthia was having doubts about what John was saying. This doubt became real when, after Cynthia walked into the house one day, she saw John and Yoko sitting on the floor and looking at each other. She didn’t know what to do, so she just ran.

She went back the next evening and questioned John about what had happened. John just answered that it was nothing, and that he still loved her. The next days seemed fine, until Cynthia went on a small trip, where she was given a message by John’s friend Alex saying that he was going to divorce her, take Julian away and send her back home. Reading the newspapers, Cynthia fully realised that John had been cheating on her with Yoko. John hid this behind an accusation that Cynthia had cheated on him instead.

The two divorced and went their separate ways, with Cynthia being in custody of Julian. Cynthia still kept an eye on news about John, feeling worried when he would pull what would be considered a crazy stunt. Julian would be worried about the two, as well as the fact he couldn’t see John, to which Cynthia would try and comfort him, telling him that he would see him one day.

It was in 1973 that this came to fruition. Cynthia and Julian came over to see John, and spent some time together. The visit didn’t last too long, and Cynthia returned home, but did agree with John to let Julian see him every now and again. Though the relationship between John, Cynthia, and Julian seemed to be stable, there was a clear difference. John was spending more time and money on his son with Yoko, Sean, and seemed to only give Julian the most modest amount of time possible. This made Cynthia rather upset, but didn’t say much about it in fear of accidentally angering John.

After John’s murder, Cynthia was completely shocked and sorry about the event, especially after she and John were starting to be on more friendly terms. In the resolve of the situation, she kept going, deciding to remember John by a white feather, which was something that he once said to Julian.

Fanon
Inside the fandom, Lennell is moderately popular, but outside the fandom and in the inner circles it is one of the most disliked. Shippers of it often debate a scenario where John and Cynthia’s relationship carried on and he had never been involved with Yoko. Fanfictions include a lot of what ifs and AUs. Outside and in the inner circles, it is disliked due to a common misconception that it was physically toxic. Some people dislike it due to the mental toxicity near the beginning of the relationship.

Fandom
AO3



Quotes
"He was full of contradictions and confusion. He wanted proof, daily, that he mattered most to me. He was jealous of my close friendship with Phyl and even of my work, if I chose to spend an evening catching up with it instead of with him. Yet despite John’s aggression and jealousy I felt protective towards him. To me he was a lost soul and I wanted to give him understanding, acceptance and the security of being loved to ease his pain and bitterness."

- Cynthia on John "He wrote love poems on scraps of paper and passed them to me at college. For our first Christmas he drew a card with a picture of me in my new shaggy coat, standing opposite him, our heads together, his hand on my arm. It was covered with kisses and hearts, and he wrote, “Our first Christmas, I love you, yes, yes, yes.” On the back it said, “I hope it won’t be our last.” I loved that card and kept it in pride of place in my bedroom."

- Cynthia on a card John had wrote for her "He was deeply ashamed of what he had done: I think he had been shocked to discover he had it in him to hit me. So, although he was still verbally cutting and unkind, he was never again physically violent to me."

- Cynthia on when John had promised not to hit her again "I love you, I love you, please wait for me."

- One of John’s messages in his letters to Cynthia "There’s only one thing for it, Cyn. We’ll have to get married. Neither of us planned to have a baby, Cyn, but I love you and I’m not going to leave you now."

- John after finding out about Cynthia’s pregnancy "You don’t understand, Mimi. I love Cyn, I WANT to marry her."

- John pleading to Mimi about marrying Cynthia "We’d exchange roses or loving notes and cuddle up together in front of the TV. We called these special John-and-Cyn times, and they were oases of loving peace in the madness of our world. I treasured them."

- Cynthia on the times her and John were together "We can make it work, Cyn. When we’re in India we’ll have time for us and everything will be fine."

- John to Cynthia before the India trip "You’re the only one I’ve ever loved, Cyn. I still love you and I always will."

- John to Cynthia after the India trip