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translightyagami · 3 years

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Mikalight Week fic: 24-Hour Gym

a short mikalight fic for, what else, @mikalightweek. wrote it sort of quick? and its not explicit but is very sensual and there’s a lot of body talk and you can basically assume they fuck after the fic (i was TOO LAZY to write the smut). Anyway.

This fic is rated BPBB, for Bench Pressing Bodacious Babes.

Quiet and soft humid air filled the gym. From the window, Teru watched him with his standard issue NPA duffel bag slung over his shoulder, laughing at a text on his phone. When he looked up, they almost met eyes and Teru turned, facing his reflection in the wall-length mirror. His black hair hung in lank strands beside his face; his grey T-shirt collar darkened into a full-leaf of sweat over his front. The gym door bells jingled as he came in, cheeks pink from the mid-winter outside and a wary smile on his face.

Of course, Teru recognized him. Kira. Light. Above the brown trendy haircut floated his full name, the kanji confusing for a minute until – congealed and solidified – the meaning existed. While Light checked in with the sleepy front desk clerk, he talked loud and high-pitched. It was a voice unlike the one Teru heard in the warehouse, the one that told him after the police and that little white haired boy were dead, to go home. To make up an alibi. And to meet him, at this little 24-hour gym, in ten days.

Watching Light’s mirror twin walk to the back lockers, Teru lifted his dumbbells on autopilot – eleven, twelve, twelve, no wait – before setting them down, grabbing the towel he tucked into his jogger’s waistband. Nervous sweat and exertion sweat mixed together, all mopped away by a monogramed hand towel. When he glanced back up, Light was at the rowing machine.

For twenty minutes, they waltzed: Light moved to a machine, doing his reps, while Teru went to a different machine, did his own program. (An unceasing eye for detail made note that Light lifted about ten under Teru’s lowest weight.) Having shed a jacket now that he’d warmed up, Light worked in a loose white tank top that hung low in the sleeve holes. Every so often, when he reached to grasp a bar, his chest swooped in and out of view. Teru caught scar tissue, though never a long enough glimpse to know its shape. He stood from the arm extension machine and walked to the bench press. All the way he felt two sharp eyes peering at him from a leg machine.

Teru set the plates: two 10 kg., and then two 2.5 kg. plates, an unusual though not overwhelmingly larger weight than he lifted on a normal night. Foolish and near school-boylike, he wanted to show off in front of the other man. After setting the weights, he leaned back and rested his head beneath the long metal bar – and waited. The sound of God walking, a long stride with confident footfalls, was familiar in Teru’s ears. Head haloed in florescent, Light bent above the metal bar with arms outstretched.

“Do you need a spotter?” His tone suggested a joke – ha, ha, who else but me – but Teru only heard the question in serious.

“Yes,” he said, and it was then he realized these were the first words he’d spoken to Light in public. How apt, how right, that their exchange be God extending his hands to help Teru carry such a heavy burden. Light hovered his palms just around the silver length, eyes trained on Teru as he wrapped fists at either end and – oh! – lifted. Every rep, staring directly into a brown-eyed microscope, and Teru almost shook, lost his strength, when their hands nearly brushed. He managed ten reps before gently resting the bar back in place. Sweat dripped off his neck and above him, it made gems across Light’s forehead.

“Wow,” Light said. “You’re pretty strong.”

“T-thank you,” Teru cursed his stutter. He didn’t expect the compliment and it made a little flower burst inside his concrete encased heart. The flower only grew the longer Light looked at him, smile just a pink curve, eyes unnervingly genuine. It was a look that fake people in movies gave each other – Teru hated how much he liked to trust it. God had to be genuine – a kingdom of justice would never stand on false ground. Light’s stare trapped him with a weight deeper and heavier than any dumbbell, and when he glanced away, Teru gasped. His breath had flattened in his chest.

Light left first, at midnight, and when Teru went to his own locker at one thirty am, he found a note shoved into the air slits. On the note was a phone number and curt letter L for a signature. He folded it into the smallest triangle he could, having memorized the number, and set the paper beneath his tongue. As Teru packed his things, nodded to the gym employee, walked into a cold and calamitous city sidewalk, the paper poked and scraped the inner wet flesh. Pain in little bites followed him on his walk – each bright moment a moment of God beside him. Do you need a spotter? A question, a divine extended hand. Wow. You’re pretty strong. Strong, a warrior disciple, God’s most beloved. And, at the platform for his train home, he swallowed the dissolving note – communion.

Teru started working out in high school, when a gym teacher suggested a natural physical ability like his could use sculpting and recognized in him a perhaps genetic inability to play on a team. Ever since the first time, he took to the regimentation, the preplanning and trackable results of gym life. Within the walls of his usual club – the membership to which took up an embarrassing but necessary amount of his pay – Teru found ritual. A work out was an offering to the divine in his own body, and now it became religious practice, a modeling of himself into a better tool for Kira’s will.

This late night arrangement became weekly. On Tuesdays, Teru and Light worked out in the same hole-in-the-wall 24-hour gym, just them and one employee. Two owls dancing around the machines, Teru knew both their stares were gobbling each other’s body behaviors like so many tasty mice. He saw in Light a similar high-school athletics resolve, although the way his muscles smoothed rather than fit into shapes spoke more to sports than targeted workouts. Teru resisted his own snobbery in this observation – though he found a dedication to the perfecting of the body rather than to sportsmanship more pleasing. Kira had his reasons, maybe, for choosing athletic pastimes. There too was a certain leanness to Light’s body as well. Even with a layer of more authoritative muscle, he looked vulpine, foxlike in his lithe frame. His posture retained the slight slouch that many people who were slim in their young adult hood had; in fact, Teru only recognized it since he himself trained it out of his own habits a year prior.

And, yet, the flurry of observation – itself a thrill in its artificial intimacy – didn’t compare to those few minutes where Light leaned over, put his elegant hands out, and spotted Teru’s bench press. He took to doing them more often than his usual schedule. Combined with the bigger weights, an unevenness grew in his routine that Teru would never have allowed before. He couldn’t stop himself though. Anything for a few moments close enough to Light to see the split of his lips, the sweat trickling over his flushed cheeks.

On the fourth week, while Teru wiped down the leg press after he used it, Light approached him.

“Hey,” he said. “Isn’t weird how we’re always in this place together, but we’ve never learned each other’s names?”

“Mikami Teru,” Teru said. The tone was straightforward, and his volume normal – and still he imagined how imprudent he sounded. “I don’t usually go to this gym.”

Light narrowed his eyes and shook his head, just enough to say not the plan. Up his back, Teru’s spine stiffened. It was no joy to disappoint Light.

“Well,” Light said, slick voice untwisting the frustration in his gaze and presenting a smile that bordered on pretty. “I’m Yagami Light. I’ve really admired your routine. Maybe sometime we can meet up. I’m no good with workouts, not like you.”

“Oh. Yes.” Teru nodded. Meet up? Before he could ask a clarifying question, Light spoke over his concerns.

“Call me tomorrow,” he said. “I’m free after five.”

He walked away, not leaving a number except the one boiled in Teru’s stomach. No matter how heavy the weights he lifted, no matter the volume of the baby crying on his bus home, all Teru thought of was his phone and tomorrow after five. His palms itched.

He called at five twenty the next day, having rushed home after a meeting went long, and Teru never heard a worse noise than the ringing before Light picked up. On first answering, his tone was unpleasantly gruff, accusatory – a man in the drag of an older, wiser man. It clashed with the smooth youthfulness of Light’s voice in the gym, which only returned when Teru tentatively said his own greeting.

“Oh! Mikami,” Light said, a balm over the scratches left behind by his put-on masculinity. “You’re calling so late. I thought maybe you forgot.”

“No,” Teru said. “Never. I don’t forget important things.”

“Mm,” Light said. Behind his voice was a tapping sound, someone hitting paper with a pen. “I’m honored to be an important thing. Say, I didn’t catch it before, but where did you say you lived?”

Teru sat on a kitchen stool; he’d been standing, impatient, in the breakfast nook as though preparing to run to wherever Kira needed him. But the question set him down – why did Light want to know? And was it safe to say over the phone? Realizing he’d left dead air too long, Teru muttered that he lived further south – about an hour from the 24-hour gym.

“Oh, I see,” Light sounded mildly perturbed to be have been waiting. “I was just thinking, my girlfriend is making cookies and I thought I’d send you some. Do you have an address that’d be good?”

His girlfriend? Teru didn’t press but his stomach sank. However the phrase stung, he listed his apartment address in dutiful detail. In his ear were the soft scratches of Light’s pen writing everything down and, once he finished, Teru coughed. He didn’t want the phone call to end.

“Did you play sports?” His question flowed out in a proper, clear way, and Teru congratulated himself on how normal he sounded. “Maybe in high school?”

Light went quiet and when he spoke again, the words were cold.

“I played tennis,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

“I only wondered because,” Teru scrambled for something less damning to say, “you’re in such good shape but don’t like to work out. And usually that’s because of sports, I find.”

“Ah,” a low simmer melted Light’s voice. “You like to work out, don’t you, Mikami?”

“Mm,” Teru said. “I enjoy the time to work on my body. Physical fitness is a key to leading a good, worthwhile life.��

“Interesting,” Light said. He tapped his pen before popping his lips. Their wet click was at once disgusting – the body, the spit, the base physicality of it – and alluring – the body, the spit, the parts of Kira blessed by his own inner spirit. “I’ll send those cookies tonight. Expect them at your door around midnight, hm?”

“Oh.” This wasn’t about cookies. “Yes, I’ll look for them then. Thank you, Light. That’s very kind of you.”

“I’m always kind to my friends,” Light said.

At midnight, Teru heard the curt knock of the one he waited for. Standing in the hallway of his apartment building, wrapped in a coat, green sweater and black jeans, was Light. He smiled when Teru gestured for him to come inside – a good, well-raised smile. In a small childish part of himself, Teru wished to return such a pleasant smile. Instead, he nodded and raised his eyebrows as Light pressed a plastic box into his hands.

“I wasn’t lying, before on the phone,” he said, shaking off his coat. “My girlfriend was baking. She insisted I take some to meet my new friend. My recommendation?” Light swung around, coat on his finger and a wryness to his expression. “Toss them. Misa can’t bake.”

“How unfortunate,” Teru said. I’m a passable baker, he thought.

Light walked further into the one-bedroom space. He put his coat onto the black lacquered hat rack’s lower rung, ran a finger across the tight gray rectangle couch, and complimented the large entertainment center Teru built. When he let it slip that, in fact, he’d built it himself, Teru saw a curl of interest in Light’s gaze.

“I’ve always liked building too,” Light said, shrugging. “But never something so well constructed.”

He wandered into the sitting room and looked to his feet, a play-acted shyness. Nothing in his body language bar the glance down suggested timidity. Teru followed, although he knew his own behavior was less confident. Light flicked his eyes up and stilled Teru’s movements.

“I’m proud of your actions,” he said. “How well you served me, served the kingdom Kira hopes to build.”

A tremor worked through Teru and he sat, unable to keep his legs steady. To be acknowledged made him eager and fraught. Without thinking, he bowed his head, and a warm palm pressed over the back of his neck. Light murmured something.

“What did you say?” Teru asked, eyes going blurry the longer he stared at his own lap.

“I said,” Light slid a finger beneath his chin, tipping Teru up and into his line of vision. “Do you think you could bench press me?”

“I,” Teru frowned, his instinct to refuse presenting weakness. He fought past it. “I can try.”

The smile from before – polite, the kind a mother asked for during family pictures, toothless – warped into the brilliant split Teru recognized from the yellow warehouse. Light smiled in high volume, loud and greedy.

“Perfect,” he said. “Let me undress.”

“Undress?” Teru’s resolve wavered and he stood.

Light shrugged, already popping the button of his jeans.

“Won’t you need better traction?” He asked. “My clothes might cause your hand to slip.”

Breathless, Teru watched God strip down to a pair of black briefs. Shirtless, the two pink scars he saw glimpses of before swiped just beneath Light’s nipples, which hardened in the air-conditioning. Mental deduction took Teru up to chest surgery, although he couldn’t pinpoint the reason. As he stared, Light’s eyes took on impatience not unlike when Teru slipped up in the gym.

“Do I not please you?” Light raised his eyebrows, swinging out his hands. “Do you find God wanting in some way, Mikami?”

“No, no,” Teru covered his mouth. “I apologize for the imprudence. I only was curious.”

“Keep curiosity to the cats,” Light said. “Now, lay back and we’ll try this.”

Teru pushed his coffee table to the side and laid himself down on the sitting room rug. Flat on his back, Light leaning over him almost nude, a strange helplessness infected him. No matter what happened next, he had no real choice other than what Light chose for him. It didn’t help that Light’s gaze had an almost lepidopterist’s leer – staring at a captured butterfly and wondering what pins to use on its corpse. Teru shook himself inside; Kira didn’t think of him as a butterfly. He was a servant, a faithful one, and Kira found him strong.

Stretching up his arms, Teru cupped his hands and met Light with his own stare.

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said, “slowly place your waist in my right hand and your thigh in my left.”

Light nodded, walking around to stand next Teru’s shoulder. He bent in a gentle arc and his waist was the first thing to touch against Teru’s palm. In a shift, the confidence of before didn’t echo in Light’s actions now. He was cautious, still leaving one foot on the ground as he laid himself into Teru’s grasp. A muffled groaned left Teru; even with his weight distributed away, Light was still heavy.

“Um,” Light said. “Is it okay to let go?”

The question was human, quiet, and Teru wanted to file it away suddenly. He took a deep breath, wiggled his fingers where they held Light, and nodded.

“Go ahead,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

Light gasped as he lifted his leg. Balanced between Teru’s straining arms, he hovered untouched by anything but air and the other man. Teru was in pain – not just from the difficulty of holding up an adult man but from how good Light felt. He was warm, soft, and yet at the same time hard, solid muscle beneath the skin. Gritting his teeth, Teru heaved and lowered his armload until Light’s hip was just above his mouth.

He couldn’t help himself; Teru kissed the bare skin. His lips slid just so over goosebumps, tasting hints of salt and body lotion. Even partway through, he wanted to kiss the vulnerable hip again – memorize the flavor of Kira against his mouth. Light trembled and let out his name in a rasp.

“Mikami,” Light whispered. “Fuck.”

No answer occurred to him, so Teru lifted Light back up. As charged as the moment was, a small part of him celebrated being strong enough to, in fact, perform one bench press of another human. Light squirmed in his hands, too much, and without warning, Teru’s grip loosened. God fell out of his palms and landed hard on Teru’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

“Ah,” he shouted at the same time Light yelled, “Fuck!” They sat in sore heap. Teru rubbed his hands together, over and over. He’d failed; he let Light fall, hadn’t been strong enough to keep him stable. With trepidation, he glanced toward the other man prepared to see anger in God’s eyes, but instead Light stared back at him with arousal. His eyes were hot, molten, and his movements became languid.

“You’re so strong,” Light said, and now his voice was like nothing Teru ever heard before. There was a wildness mixed in with hunger. Light looked at him, and Teru wanted to be devoured.

“I knew the moment I saw you,” Light crawled up Teru’s aching body, his words like lava poured from his mouth. “You would be my strongest one.”

“I want to be strong for you, God,” Teru let out. “I want to serve you, be your sword.”

“Oh,” Light laughed, and it was an abrupt sound. Teru couldn’t say he liked it but the brightness in Light’s cheeks was good.

“You’ll serve me very well,” Light said, brushing Teru’s hair away from his ear so he could speak into it. His voice burned into the delicate shell. “Mikami.”

“Teru,” his voice came out a little weedy, yet Teru met Light’s hot gaze with his own resolve. “Call me Teru.”

#me me me #subtextual #death note #my fic #mikalightweek #mikalight #mikami teru #light yagami #sorry if mikami is out of character or any other number of complaints a person could hv about this fic!#he's a character i rlly struggle with and i tried to write him with as much humanity as possible!#anyway! enjoy Mikami Bench Pressing a Half-Naked Light

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irelise · 4 years

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Fic “Behind the Scenes” - Alex Rider

Trying to dip my toes back into writing, so I thought I’d ramble about some fics I’ve already written! This started off as ranting about my title choice and how they’re usually Final Fantasy XIV songs I butcher in order to forcibly fit the fic, but it expanded into musings about things that didn’t make the cut into the final fic, and potential sequels/things that happen down the line.

Just doing Alex Rider fics for now since that’s my current active fandom, but drop me an ask if there are any fics you’re especially interested in from any fandom!

Starting off with: Time (2368 words, gen, Alex & Yassen focused) aka my untagged Inception-flavoured AU where the plot twist was that it was a dream all along That said, this title was probably one of the easiest to come up with and was obviously from the main theme of Inception, Time! Which is fantastic like the whole movie aaaa i love Inception AUs and this fic is probably the one I’m most likely to expand into longfic if I dredge up the motivation from somewhere. It would be a mission style fic, possibly a heist, where Alex and Yassen are seemingly working together in order to steal some valuable intel from another group. Of course, it’s all a dream! Through copious dream symbolism and mind fuckery the real mission was set up by MI6 for Alex to extract intel from Yassen, who by this point is steadily losing his grip on dreams and reality after months, possibly years, spent under sedation.

Yassen has a few tricks up his sleeve, though. He’s aware that he’s (probably) dreaming and he can see the fractures in Alex’s resolve after such a long time of being used and manipulated by MI6. It would only take a little nudge to get Alex to defect -- or, at the very least, to escape.

So while Alex is busy trying to extract information from Yassen, Yassen is trying to do the opposite: inception.

The rest below cut for length and also because they’re nsfw since most of my writing was for the kink meme! Warning for general fucked-upness and unhealthy relationships

at the end, on a dusty road (8154 words, Yassen/Alex) aka the reputation sabotage fic, aka where’s part 3b?!

Title from Origa’s Polyushka Polye:

The wind scatters your brave songs Across the green field. Songs of the past, Leaving them alone with your glory, And right at the end, on a dusty road…

i just wanted something wistful and Russian about past soldiers and fading glory ok....... I came pretty close to titling the fic leaving them alone with your past glory but decided it didn’t make much sense out of context.

ANYWAY my first Yalex fic! Very much inspired by a hodgepodge of comments on Discord about how MI6 would react if they ever saw Yassen paying Alex visits in the middle of the night - “Could they be exchanging information?” “The whole night? Maybe the answer is something more obvious...”

ANYWAY the ending at the moment is pretty open - there’s two main ways I see it going:

1) Yassen comes back shortly afterwards, realises he had fucked up colossally, stays and helps Alex rebuild even though Alex (very justifiably) no longer trusts him. Very slow reconciliation and healing but ultimately happy ending.

2) aka the one where I broke Nanibun’s shipper heart over Discord: Alex and Yassen eventually reunite, but it isn’t until years later, when Alex is nearing middle age and Yassen has faded into obscurity. Alex managed to pick up the pieces of his life and even moved on properly from MI6, and now lives a fulfilling life. Married, 2.5 kids, white picket fence, the whole lot. So what if his marriage is more for partnership than for love? He’s content with the direction his life had taken and has strong ties to his community. He even managed to forgive Yassen, even though it took him a long time.

He and Yassen meet for the last time in a sunlit cafe in spring. Alex looks at Yassen and sees only a stranger with lines crinkling under his eyes.Yassen is getting old, he realizes. He thinks he should be happy that Yassen even had the chance to get old, but all he feels is relief that their paths had diverged. Alex is done with that life and he can never trust Yassen again. All that old passion had burned away to nothing, not even a flickering flame. Even though the initial parting had been painful, Alex had managed to find peace long ago, and he hopes Yassen will be able to do the same. But it's a distant, unemotional hope, the sort of hope you'd have for a distant acquaintance you haven't seen in years. The type of well wishes that are etiquette more than actual sentiment.

He's glad when their drinks are finished and Yassen melts away into the chattering springtime crowd, one final dangling chapter of his life closed at last.

...............or, 3) Alex throws himself into increasingly dangerous situations in an attempt to feel something and dies young.

(part 3b is coming someday i swear! it’s the alternate path where Yassen has second thoughts, tells Alex the truth, and doesn’t send the sex tape to MI6)

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Lemniscate (3562 words, Julia Rothman/Yassen) Not a whole lot to say about this one, except after I finished I realised it was really similar to another fic I previously wrote which also involved a young man desperate to reinvent himself completely being taken advantage of by his superior............ i have a Type

Title - I was jamming out to Locus while writing this which is a song all about an inability to escape from cycles - When fighting back right out of this system/Means falling back right into this space ; When falling back is better than simply/Falling back into pieces again - but it was long and unwieldy so I thought about shortening it to Moebius but that was a bit overdone... In the end I settled with Lemniscate which is also an infinity symbol, Moebius-like shape. Mostly it’s a reference to how Yassen never quite breaks free of his “cycle” even though he’s with Scorpia now - he was Sharkovsky’s slave and bedwarmer and...now he plays basically the same role for Julia Rothman. (Just with a bit more murder and moral erosion!)

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This probably needs a special content warning - major character death (gun suicide from the second Russian roulette scene), gore, necrophilia

closing the circle (3650 words, John Rider & Yassen) aka is it still a gen fic if there’s offscreen necrophilia?

This was originally written for a kink meme prompt for corpse mutilation + necrophilia but then the John and Yassen plot thread kind of took over and I never actually ended up writing the gory stuff oops since it was too out of place compared to the rest. So everything below can be considered not “canon” since the fic diverged so heavily from its original plan (which is why the section numbers skip around - I cut out Yassen’s bits). But if you’re curious, here’s the details for what I originally planned to happen to Yassen (well, his corpse) and the Sharkovsky family, copy-pasted straight from my notes and full of as much karma as I could stuff in:

Yassen’s death, Sharkovsky shoves his fingers in the bullet hole and spits on the body in disgust. Yassen regains consciousness halfway through this; he can feel what Sharkovsky is doing

Ivan comes running in, attracted by the sound of the gunshot. Sharkovsky tells him to do what he likes with the body as long as it’s disposed of in the end. Necrophilia scene? Afterwards Ivan disposes of the body by locking it in the cellar alone with the Dalmatian for a few days

Yassen starts getting his revenge. Ivan is the first to go when he comes to let the Dalmatian out – the Dalmatian savages him and tears out his throat before it’s finally shot. Yassen’s bones get buried along with the Dalmatian. Ivan’s body is kept in the cold storage room in the basement where they kept the old food taster’s body while they decide what to do with him.

Maya, Sharkovsky’s wife, is next. She passes away in the middle of the night. Sharkovsky wakes up next to a cooling corpse.

There are whispers that there is some sort of curse. One of the maids talk about finding blood on the carpet of Sharkovsky’s study. She’s the next to disappear. Some other workers stop turning up.

Finally it’s Sharkovsky’s turn. He dies of poison. The dacha burns down that same night.

A Scorpia agent was sent to tie up loose ends (Scorpia didn’t know Sharkovsky is already dead); Yassen kills him too. He has no loyalty to Scorpia and just wants to be left alone.

Hunter is sent to investigate. He and Yassen talk, in the end, Hunter invites Yassen to come with him, Yassen agrees. But when they leave the dacha and Hunter looks back, he finds that Yassen is gone.

And an excerpt:

Yassen is dead. He does not remember dying. There are some things the human mind tries to shield itself from, and the memory of a bullet traveling through bone and brain to erupt on the other side in a shower of gore is one of those things.

Yassen is dead. He had hoped death would mean oblivion. At his most naïve and optimistic, he had hoped death would mean reunion. Happiness. A return to simpler days.

He discovers, instead, that death is not so different from life, except he is even more powerless now than before.

There is a body on the floor of Sharkovsky’s study. Its hair had once been pale white-blond, but now it is matted with coagulating blood. That same blood spreads in a dark pool against the carpet, clotting the fibres together into ugly clumps, stiff and flaking. The fire in the hearth is still burning sullenly. Its light glistens against the grotesque strands of viscera splattered against the ground, the furniture, the wall. A round hole had been punched into the side of the corpse’s head, piercing bone and brain. That was how the man who had once been Yassen Gregorovich had killed himself. The fingers of the corpse remain loosely curled around the old-fashioned revolver that had been the instrument of death.

The only living person in the room rises slowly from his wheelchair. Sharkovsky’s skeletal face is twisted into an ugly grimace of anger. He totters over to the corpse, nudging it with the tip of one polished leather shoe. “Waste of time,” he says coldly. “Ruining a perfectly good carpet, and for what?”

In a sudden fit of temper, he lashes out with a kick. Once, it would have been strong enough to break several ribs (Yassen knows from intimate experience). Now, the corpse merely flops limply to one side. It incenses Sharkovsky further. He drops heavily to his knees, breathing harshly, and backhands the corpse across the face with one shaking hand.

#fandom: alex rider #My writing #meta

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theliberaltony · 4 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

FiveThirtyEight has issued its final presidential forecast. There hasn’t been a lot of change over the past 24 or 48 hours, as most of the late polling either came in close to our previous polling averages, or came from — frankly — fairly random pollsters that don’t get a lot of weight in our forecast.

Of course, you can click over to the forecast right now if you’d like to see what it says — I’m sure most of you have already done that. But in these accompanying write-ups, I like to provide some context. When I wrote about our final presidential forecast in 2012, for example, I was trying to explain why a race that everyone assumed was close actually reflected a fairly decisive advantage for Barack Obama. When I wrote about our final forecast in 2016, conversely, it was pretty much the opposite. I was trying to explain that, although Hillary Clinton was favored, what most of the media was portraying as a sure thing was a highly competitive contest between her and Donald Trump.

This year … I’m not really sure what I’m trying to convince you of. If you think that polling is irrevocably broken because of 2016 — well, that’s not really correct. On the other hand, if it weren’t for 2016, people might look at Joe Biden’s large lead in national polls — the largest of any candidate on the eve of the election since Bill Clinton in 1996 — and conclude that Trump was certain to be a one-term president. If you do think that, please read my story from earlier this week about how Trump can win and why a 10 percent chance needs to be taken seriously.

Nonetheless, Biden’s standing is considerably stronger than Clinton’s at the end of the 2016 race. His lead is larger than Clinton’s in every battleground state, and more than double her lead nationally. Our model forecasts Biden to win the popular vote by 8 percentage points,5 more than twice Clinton’s projected margin at the end of 2016.

Indeed, some of the dynamics that allowed Trump to prevail in 2016 wouldn’t seem to exist this year. There are considerably fewer undecided voters in this race — just 4.8 percent of voters say they’re undecided or plan to vote for third-party candidates, as compared to 12.5 percent at the end of 2016. And the polls have been considerably more stable this year than they were four years ago. Finally, unlike the “Comey letter” in the closing days of the campaign four years ago — when then-FBI Director James Comey told Congress that new evidence had turned up pertinent to the investigation into the private email server that Clinton used as secretary of state — there’s been no major development in the final 10 days to further shake up the race.

Now, there are also some sources of error that weren’t as relevant four years ago. The big surge in early and mail voting — around 100 million people have already voted! — could present challenges to pollsters, for instance. Still, even making what we think are fairly conservative assumptions, our final forecast has Biden with an 89 percent chance of winning the Electoral College, as compared to a 10 percent chance for Trump. (The remaining 1 percent reflects rounding error, plus the chance of an Electoral College tie.)

But what’s tricky about this race is that — because of Trump’s Electoral College advantage, which he largely carries over from 2016 — it wouldn’t take that big of a polling error in Trump’s favor to make the election interesting. Importantly, interesting isn’t the same thing as a likely Trump win; instead, the probable result of a 2016-style polling error would be a Biden victory but one that took some time to resolve and which could imperil Democrats’ chances of taking over the Senate. On the flip side, it wouldn’t take much of a polling error in Biden’s favor to turn 2020 into a historic landslide against Trump.

So as we did four years ago, let’s run through a few stress checks here. On average in past elections, the final polls have been off by around 3 percentage points. How would the map change if there were a 3-point error in Trump’s direction? And what about a 3-point error in Biden’s direction? Keeping in mind that some states move more than others in accordance with national trends, here’s what our final forecast shows:

How a 2016-sized polling error would change our forecast

Biden’s projected margin of victory or defeat in the most competitive states

with 3-point national error … State Final 538 Forecast IN BIDEN’S FAVOR IN TRUMP’S FAVOR New Hampshire +10.6 +14.5 +6.7 Minnesota +9.1 +12.1 +6.0 Wisconsin +8.3 +11.6 +5.1 Michigan +8.0 +11.2 +4.9 Nevada +6.1 +9.5 +2.8 Pennsylvania +4.7 +7.7 +1.7 NE-2 +3.2 +6.4 -0.0 Arizona +2.6 +5.8 -0.7 Florida +2.5 +5.7 -0.7 North Carolina +1.8 +4.7 -1.1 ME-2 +1.6 +4.8 -1.6 Georgia +1.0 +3.6 -1.6 Ohio -0.6 +2.5 -3.7 Iowa -1.5 +2.0 -5.0 Texas -1.5 +1.7 -4.7 Montana -6.4 -3.3 -9.5 South Carolina -7.5 -4.8 -10.2 Alaska -8.5 -5.3 -11.7 Missouri -9.4 -6.3 -12.5

First, before we get to the Biden-friendly or Trump-friendly scenarios: Suppose this is one of those happy years when there isn’t any systematic error in the polls — that is, Biden wins by about 8 points nationally. In that case, then Biden’s going to win the Electoral College, even if there might be polling misses in individual states. Biden’s easiest path to victory would be to win back three of the so-called “Blue Wall” states that Hillary Clinton lost: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Coupled with the states that Clinton won in 2016, that would get Biden up to 278 electoral votes, more than the 270 required. Pennsylvania is the most tenuous of the “Blue Wall” group, but even if Biden lost it — unlikely if polls are about right overall — he’d have plenty of other options as he’s also narrowly ahead in our final forecast in Arizona, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia and only narrowly behind Trump in Ohio, Texas and Iowa.

What if there were a 3-point polling error in Biden’s favor? Then he’d be a favorite in all of the aforementioned states. Coupled with the 2nd Congressional Districts in Maine and Nebraska, where he’s also favored, that would result in his winning 413 electoral votes. Other states that are traditionally extremely red could even come into play for Biden too, with Montana being the most likely possibility, followed by South Carolina, Alaska and Missouri. This scenario would also make for an 11-point popular vote margin for Biden, the biggest by any candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984, and the biggest winning margin against an incumbent since Franklin Delano Roosevelt against Herbert Hoover in 1932.

But with a 3-point error in Trump’s direction — more or less what happened in 2016 — the race would become competitive. Biden would probably hold on, but he’d only be the outright favorite in states (and congressional districts) containing 279 electoral votes. In Pennsylvania, the tipping-point state, he’d be projected to win by 1.7 percentage points — not within the recount margin, but a close race.

Such a scenario would not be the end of the world for Biden. The extra cushion that he has relative to Clinton helps a lot; it means that with a 2016-style polling error, he’d narrowly win some states that she narrowly lost. Biden has polled well recently in Michigan and Wisconsin in particular and has big leads there. Still, this would not be the sort of outcome that Democrats were hoping for. For one thing, because Biden would probably be reliant on Pennsylvania in this scenario — a state that is expected to take some time to count its vote — the election might take longer to call. For another, it could yield a fairly bad map as far as Democrats’ Senate hopes go, as Biden would be a narrow underdog in several states with key Senate races, including Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia and Iowa. So while Biden isn’t a normal-sized polling error away from losing, he is a normal-sized polling error away from having a messy win that might not come with control of Congress.

Still, as much as we’ve tried to strike a note of caution, Democrats have a right to be pleased about where they wound up. Sure, Biden could be in a meaningly safer position with a larger polling lead in Pennsylvania or Arizona, where his numbers have slipped a bit down the stretch run. Nonetheless, if we’d told our Democratic readers six months ago that Biden would be heading into election morning ahead by 8 points nationally, also ahead by 8 points in Wisconsin and Michigan, by 5 points in Pennsylvania, by 2 or 3 points in Florida and Arizona, and even a little bit ahead in Georgia and with a pretty decent chance to win Texas, we think they’d be fairly pleased.

It’s also worth keeping in mind the background conditions in the country today. Trump only barely won the election four years ago, against a highly unpopular opponent in Clinton. In 2016, 18 percent of voters in the national exit poll disliked both Trump and Clinton, and those voters went for Trump by 17 points. If they’d merely split evenly, Clinton would have (narrowly) won the Electoral College. Many of those voters actually like Biden, though, who has much better favorability ratings than either Clinton or Trump.

Meanwhile, the election comes at a time where a 2:1 majority of voters are dissatisfied with the direction of the country amid a COVID-19 pandemic that his killed 233,000 Americans — and which has gotten worse in recent weeks — along with high (though improving) unemployment, a summer of racial protests, and continuous erosions of democratic norms by Trump and his administration. Trump’s approval rating has been in negative territory through virtually the entirety of his presidency. Trump’s electoral record is hardly unblemished: Democrats won the popular vote for the U.S. House by nearly 9 points in 2018, about the same margin that Trump now trails in national polls, in an election where polls and forecasts were highly accurate.

In other words, given everything going on in the country — and Biden’s popularity relative to Clinton — it simply shouldn’t be that hard to imagine a small number of voters switching from Trump to Biden. Indeed, that’s what polls show: There are more Trump-to-Biden voters than Clinton-to-Trump voters. The lion’s share of people who voted for Gary Johnson or another third party candidate four years ago also say they plan to vote for Biden.

Trump might be able to overcome this with a disproportionately high Republican turnout. But while Republican turnout might be very high, Democratic turnout almost certainly will be too, as evidenced by, among other things: Democrats’ equal or higher enthusiasm level in polls; their very high numbers in early and absentee voting, and their greater fundraising prowess throughout the cycle.

Again, this is not to deny that Trump will turn out his voters, too. Our model projects overall turnout in the race to be a record setting 158 million, with an 80th percentile range between 147 million and 168 million. But if persuadable voters and independents are mostly flipping to the other party, you need your turnout to be high and for the other party’s to be low to have much of a shot, and that latter condition doesn’t appear likely for Trump.

Still, 10 percent chances happen, there’s never been an election quite like this one and this isn’t a moment that anybody should be taking anything for granted. We hope you’ll follow our coverage for as long as it takes to determine who won.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Nate Silver

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donaeis · 4 years

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You know all those things adults say about love? How it’s easy or difficult and simple or complex and how we shouldn’t seek it out and it’ll ultimately find us? How it’s worth it?

Yeah, for Rani, there weren’t really any positives about love in the same way that there weren’t any negatives. She hated it. Absolutely, irrevocably hated it.

But then, at the same time, she loved it. Needed it. Spent all her time worrying about it, searching it, feeling like she had to have it.

For Rani, love was all about extremes… which shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, given her age. Boy, how she wished she could just skip these teen days entirely and move on to the in her eyes all but Utopian days of adulthood; where she could finally be her own person and nothing else would matter anymore and she would be married with 2.5 kids and a blonde Labrador named Toby and a mean, grumpy cat named Cat. Those would be the days.

But until then, she had to go through this first. She had to get through the horror that was adolescence. She had to get through all of those aforementioned extremes about love.

And if it weren’t clear enough already, Rani felt another urge to emphasize how NOT easy it was, adolescence. For adults, she imagined, love was easy. She wasn’t entirely sure why she did – maybe it was from watching her fathers, whose love was so pure she could only wish to achieve the same some day – but it was something she felt resolved on. Love was easy and it came automatically and when you knew, you knew. And when you loved someone, they loved you back.

It’s what she had hoped would happen to her initially, too. She’d had high hopes for love. But then her adolescence came. And boy, what a mess that was.

She was fairly sure she could no longer count on one hand the amount of unrequited cases of love she had experienced already.

It became so bad that Rani was starting to wonder if she’d ever find love. Of course, a part of her knew she was being dramatic – after all, she wasn’t even 18 yet. Still had her whole life ahead of her, as Cai had told her reassuringly.

Cai: “I mean, it took me 500 years to find my soulmate.”

Rani: “That’s… not that reassuring, pop.”

She didn’t exactly have that kind of time.

Cai: “Just don’t look for it, Rani. It doesn’t work that way. You know what they say: it’ll come when you least expect it… and you won’t be an exception.”

[full chapter here.]

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#sims 4 #xaos #cai&ang #rani #gameplay

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why-this-kolaveri-machi · 5 years

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some people are just born bad.

look who’s finally gotten her shit together and watched the new episode! honestly, i was busy, but also maybe putting off watching this episode because i felt the pressure to Write Something about it when a lot of the times i don’t have insights so much as i point and go, “ooh shiny!”? so. i don’t know. anyway, i got over myself, i watched titans 2.05, it was excellent, and i would like to tell you why.

SPOILERS ahead.

1. titans is taking a HUGE gamble by keeping the titans’ history with deathstroke under wraps five episodes into the season, and having the old team constantly refer to it in increasingly melodramatic terms. i mean, this episode is called deathstroke but we never actually see his face--just his admittedly creepy mask--and we still have no idea what dick did to jericho that was so horrible that they’re carrying this much guilt with them all these years later. i mean, if the reveal doesn’t live up to all of this sinister build-up *cough*trigon*cough* it would be a great pity.

1.5. i do think this episode hung together better than the previous four in almost every aspect--the themes were clearer, plot points were clarified, arcs advanced, and we got some genuinely good, if short, action sequences. and even though we don’t really learn anything new about slade wilson’s backstory or the origins of his feud with the titans, i do have a theory about why it is absolutely appropriate to call it deathstroke, and that theory, predictably, is mostly about dick grayson. um. so. stick around?

2. kory coming in and just... putting out fires left and right? talking sense to these melodramatic fuckers? actually inquiring after their emotional well-being, and giving them space to express themselves? FUCK YEAH. awesomeness aside, it just makes sense that she would be the one to bring some much needed perspective to the table--the og team is too caught up in the past to look at the present with any degree of emotional distance (tho dick, bless him, does try), and rachel and gar dare not question dick’s authority.

2.5. the conversation she has with rachel is easily one of the smoothest and most heartfelt parts of an episode that otherwise often appeared fraught and brittle with heightened, soap-y drama. the two of them bonding over being outcasts even among outcasts, and rachel, desperately seeking not normalcy but an anchor, and kory being that for her... just perfect. i wish we’d gotten more of this right from the beginning. i wish this theme had been developed this explicitly and this empathetically right from season 1. i wish there was more kory, period--i really do think everybody’s forgotten that her original mission on earth was to find rachel and stop trigon from destroying the planet, and i don’t think it would take much time to make her s1 and s2 plot-arcs connect, if they would just give it to her--

2.8. also, while kory bringing support and sanity to the tower is wonderful, that’s not her role, nor should it be. it would be great if she could express her own conflict with her past and her supposed destiny without having to use that to prop up somebody else when they’re in crisis.

3. dick grayson. oh boy. oooohhhh boy.

3.35. i described dick as a Mature Mentor in an earlier review and i mostly stand by that. i do think that he took in rachel and gar--and yes, jason--with an intent to not just protect them but to give them the tools and training to protect themselves. i think he committed to that as best as he could, or as best as he thought he could--a comfortable and fortified place to live, healthy food, training both their bodies and minds to defend themselves. more than anything, after the trigon fiasco, he gave these kids a place to belong. when slade and donna and dawn go off on him for putting these kids in harms way by restarting the titans, they’re being a tad unfair in ignoring this--and the fact that he didn’t know deathstroke was alive when he re-opened the tower--and the reasons they banded together to form the titans in the first place all those years ago.

3.38. it isn’t so much that he wants to keep them at a distance, or wants them to be soldiers on a mission--he frequently and freely uses the word ‘family’ when referring to them, tries to find ways to connect to them (at least until deathstroke came back and petrified his plans), and is just about always there asking what’s wrong at disturbances in the night (does this man ever sleep???). his refusal to admit vulnerability and insistence on silently taking on all responsibility and compressing it into a jagged diamond core right at his centre means that, while they clearly admire him and look up to him, rachel and gar can’t be vulnerable or honest with him. and they both need that so, so badly.

3.45. the shock of deathstroke’s return, the lingering trauma from garth’s death and whatever the fuck happened with jericho, and the old team coming back together with exactly none of their issues resolved means that a lot of bad habits are rearing their head as dick decompensates silently under intense and relentless stress. he shuts the kids out. he weathers everyone else’s admonition without protest, only occasionally cracking. he jumps into confrontations without any plan aside from ‘show up and hope things work out for the best’. the og team is too accustomed to ceding the planning and leadership to dick and funelling their feelings about the consequences of their actions through him. the kids don’t feel secure enough to question his authority. in that sense, kory is the only one in any position to really confront him, and when she does, he unravels in an instant.

so it isn’t entirely unsurprising that he goes to face deathstroke and give himself up to save both rose and jason. i can only hope that this comes as a wake-up call to the rest of the team that dick grayson is really Not Okay, and that they can’t carry on like he is.

3.6. dr. light was disposed of without much fanfare. jason’s capture was incidental. it’s ostensibly deathstroke v the titans, but deathstroke’s beef is very personal, and it’s with dick grayson. in that sense, an episode of dick grayson making very bad decisions under the stress of having to choose between two impossible choices (and failing all the same) is also the story of deathstroke playing out what he (probably) went through with ruthless, clinical precision.

3.8. as much as that final shot of jason falling to his death while dick reaches helplessly, screaming, hurts, it’s fucking agonising thinking how just five episodes ago, rachel had used that traumatic memory to save him instead.

4. hank empathising so strongly with jason, kory using her own experiences to connect with and reassure rachel... this is the content i’m craving, you guys.

4.5. now if we could just get more gar (please!) it would be perfect!

5. even if your destiny seems inevitable, even if what you are and what you are meant to be seems set in stone, there’s always another way. kory just arrived with the big over-arching theme of the season, people. god i love her.

#titans #titans spoilers #koriand'r #dick grayson #rachel roth #slade wilson #deathstroke #meta #a byronic cupcake #badass strawberry truffle

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feelingfolegandros · 4 years

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Day 1 - Tuesday, October 27 2020

Hello out there,

A friend I met here in Folegandros in September suggested I start a blog over the winter since I decided to stay. So here we are. Why not? Hi Paul!

For those who aren’t aware (I wasn’t until about 3 months ago), Folegandros is a small island in Greece, part of the Cyclades. I first visited in mid-August and fell in love with it.

I was initially there for a couple of weeks, then went to meet my friend B.W. in Palermo to celebrate her birthday, then returned for a few weeks in mid-September to early October, went back to Berlin for 2.5 weeks where I’ve been living for the past 5 years to purge myself of the vast majority of my possessions, my apartment, etc and returned just yesterday, technically, although it was very late Monday night.

Our ferry (I say our because B.W., not just a friend but my best friend, is joining me for the winter) was scheduled to arrive at 00h35 but arrived nearly an hour late. We had left Athens at 14h55.

To get here, there are a few ferry options which become increasingly sporadic as tourist season dwindles. There are typically two main options that I refer to as the “fast” and “slow” ferries. I don’t feel like explaining them now.

But okay, I guess I will elaborate. The slow ferry is quite slow… It takes just under 10 hours to get to Folegandros from Athens, with four or five stops at other islands on the way. B.W. wasn’t thrilled with the idea but I have resolved to never ever take the fast ferry again because not only is it more expensive, it also tends to be a heck of a lot more nauseating.

With the “fast” ferry, we’re talking a journey of approximately 4.5 hours on the open sea without being able to get any fresh air for the entire duration. If the wind and therefore the waves are wild, you might vomit. At one point, on a journey from Folegandros to Athens last month, I was sitting on the ground, hunched over my open suitcase, just trying to keep it together. I think this was after I darted to the tiny airplane bathroom-sized facilities where shortly after I started vomitting, a man (I think) in the stall next to me also started vomitting. A beautiful vomit symphony.

Okay, enough with the ferries, although it is the only way to get to the island, unless you’ve got access to a private boat or helicopter.

We arrived early Tuesday morning (Day 1) at something like 1:30am, when the boat was scheduled to arrive at 00h35. For the last part of the journey, I went outside to the front of the boat and revelled in each second it crawled along the long North side of the island, peering out at the lights and thinking about my favourite people and places that I would soon return to. Drinking the air and the salt and the darkness and the mystery of the almost-full moon.

My boyfriend Z.X. picked us up from the port in his car. We met at a wedding a few weeks before. More on that later... He drove us to our house, our beautiful rental abode for the winter just outside the island’s main town, Chora. B.W. and I settled into our respective rooms, with Z.X. naturally joining me for the evening in mine.

In the proper morning, after a bit of sleep, we made some breakfast, and later picked up some things we needed for the house. In the afternoon, Z.X. drove us to Agali beach. The taverna was still open, although everything else was closed. I said hello to the man who owns one of the cafés (who by the way, is an extremely talented DJ...therefore his café consistently has the best music on the island) as he diligently cleaned what looked like a drying rack for dishes. When I went for a swim in the sea, I noticed two men dismantling the sign for a hotel… a sign of the times.. The end of the season. Time for winter.

Definitely cooler than it was in early October, B.W. and I were still thrilled to be able to embrace the sea. We both feel very connected to the beach in general, to nature, to stillness, to relative simplicity in life. We bonded over our love of Greece, among other things, although she has a longer-term relationship with the nation. In fact, B.W.

spent some of last winter on Santorini, which is very close to Folegandros. She had been quietly manifesting an opportunity to spend four months of this winter in Greece, and here we are. We met online in March at the start of this whole Covid thing and became closer just this summer. We consider each other sisters, basically. Cosmically, karmically bonded whether we like it or not! (We like it!)

After Agali, after taking our turns walking along the shoreline together, separately…. Dancing, scooping up the sand, lying on my big purple psychedelic beach blanket I bought while in Palermo, laughing, counting our blessings, we headed to Ano Meria to watch the sunset. Ano Meria is the other town on the island. Z.X. lives and works there, and I have a dear friend, a true Folegandriti born and raised on the island, who also lives there with her family. Z.X. took us to a spot, according to him a former lookout point for the Italian army. We went inside the tiny stone structure, now largely filled with hay, and I carefully climbed up a tiny ladder out the window onto a rock. It was sublime. Life here in general is sublime, in my humble opinion.

We drove back to the house, with Z.X. stopping now and then to speak to locals he recognized. It’s interesting, he’s Greek but not from Folegandros, and only moved here in September. So we’re both new to the island, making our own friends, figuring out our lives here separately and sort of together. After showering we headed into Chora to get something to eat. By this point, I was already verging on hanger (hunger + anger). I opted to take a quick lap around the village to get a few moments of alone time. Z.X. and B.W. settled on Souvlaki Club, one of the few places still open on the island. B.W. has some dietary restrictions, so there were only a couple of things she could eat… And Z.X. somehow forgot them in the order. All was okay in the end, and by the time we had all eaten a bit, we were in better spirits, joking about our first dinner together as a family. At least B.W. and I thought it was funny. One thing I am still wrapping my head around is the fact that it’s completely scandalous for someone (me) to order patates (french fries) with ketchup and mayonnaise.... Z.X. explained that the combination, and the fact that it’s too different sauces makes it unhealthy and a bizarre preference. I still don’t get it, but it’s one charming example of the cultural differences between a Greek man and an Italian-Canadian woman that’s been living in Germany for half a decade. We’re learning to compromise. For example, I opted to only have ketchup with my patates to avoid any scandal that evening at Souvlaki Club. The next morning, Z.X. compromised (with my gentle, playful insistence) by cleaning a few dishes in the morning before he left, instead of just leaving them for me.

Alright, that’s all for Day 1. Let’s see if I can keep the other days more concise….

P.S. I’m going to use initials for everyone I mention in my posts. They will not be anyone’s real initials to protect the privacy of my friends, loved ones, strangers, etc.

#folegandros #greece #island #greekisland #winteringreece #cyclades

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rockandrollstorytime · 4 years

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Rock and Roll Storytime #9: The Decline and Death of Brian Jones

I’ve probably made it no secret that I have a freaky-ass memory throughout the course of this series, and this won’t be an exception. Aside from many of the exact dates, I can remember exactly how I got obsessed with Brian Jones.

It started in May 2019 while I was goofing off in art class. I was trying to write about the 27 Club, being obsessed with Kurt Cobain at the time, when I found myself captivated by a certain other blonde in the club.

I don’t know what kept me around. Maybe it was the delicate features framed by silky blond hair. Maybe it was the complicated story of his life. Maybe it was his mysterious death, and my drive to find out what really happened. Or maybe it was that shitty movie they made about him in 2005.

Whatever the reason, I stuck around. I’ll even put it this way: “Came for the morbidity stayed for the music. “

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

It took me about a week or two to come up with my first theory between wondering what the hell I was getting myself into and trying to decide whether I should watch Stoned. I found out very early on that Brian had developed asthma at the age of four after a bout of croup. Knowing that asthma attacks can result in death, I didn’t think it unlikely that Brian could have drowned as a result of an asthma attack. In my research, I found an article stating that chlorine mixing with organic material can trigger symptoms of asthma attacks and allergic reactions.

I knew I’d need more evidence though but given that I didn’t want to be too intrusive this early on, that would be a slow process. If there was one thing I held on to, it was my firm resolute to not fall for another murder conspiracy so soon. It didn’t end so well for me the last time.

As I was trying to piece together what exactly happened to Brian Jones, I was also beginning to find out the story of how he got to that point in the first place.

There are many reasons I have love-hate relationships with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and their treatment of Brian Jones is by far the biggest one.

Where the story of Brian Jones’ decline really starts is at the Ealing Club on 7 April 1962. It was here that a young Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Dick Taylor saw Brian “Elmo Lewis” Jones take the stage for the first time. The next month, Brian put an ad in the papers for musicians to come join a band he was starting. He quickly brought together Ian Stewart, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Dick Taylor, and Tony Chapman. The band, which Brian dubbed “The Rollin’ Stones,” gave their first performance on 12 July 1962, though there seems to be some confusion over who was playing drums that night. Bill Wyman replaced Dick Taylor on 7 December 1962, and Charlie Watts replaced Tony Chapman on 9 January 1963.

In the early days, Brian served as the Stones’ manager. It ended up being this very thing that led to the first cracks in this fortuitous partnership.

First thing’s first, Andrew Loog Oldham came along, and in May, he became the Stones’ manager. He only really had eyes for Mick and was one of the ones who led the subsequent whispering campaign against Brian. Not helping anything was when, on 13 October 1963, the others found out that Brian had been paying himself an extra £5 ($5.58). These were expenses he deducted because he believed that should be his pay, considering he was doing much of the work at this time. (I can sort of relate; I’ve suffered through high school group projects).

On the economics side (lord knows, that’s more Mick’s thing than mine), Bill Wyman has since stated that the Stones were making £193 ($215.38) a week. Adjusting for inflation, Brian was deducting roughly £87.26 out of £3,608.53. For the Americans in the crowd, that’s roughly $114.20 out of $4,722.66, once adjusted for inflation. Granted, across the board, that’s roughly 2.5% of the band’s total income at this point. Still, even that much might matter when you’re a bunch of starving artists.

When Paul Trynka summarized why everybody was pissed in his book, Brian Jones: The Making of the Rolling Stones, he said that for Mick, it was because he was a student at the London School of Economics. Five pounds is five pounds. Meanwhile, Keith was pissed because he, like everyone else in the band, was under the impression that they were earning equal pay in this group effort.

Pro-tip: If you start a band and feel you should be paid more because of how much of the work you’re doing, please disclose this with your band and work out an arrangement that will be beneficial to everyone. Otherwise, shit gets ugly.

Brian also didn’t help his case by insisting on staying in fancier hotels than the others (he was a bit of a neat-freak and a narcissist).

Keith later said, “He had an arrangement with (Eric) Easton, that as leader of the band he was entitled to this extra payment. Everybody freaked out. That was the beginning of the decline of Brian. We said, ‘Fuck you…’”

Meanwhile, Ian Stewart (who had been ousted from the band earlier that year) stated, “When we started playing outside London, Brian said, ‘I’m the leader of the group and I think I’ll stay at the best hotel. All the rest of you can stay in a cheaper hotel.’ Of course, the rest of the Stones just laughed at him, and that was it from then on. It was all over for him as the leader. He started to isolate himself because of this attitude.”

With one little five-pound note (and an ego trip), Brian had set in motion his entire downfall.

It might seem petty to myself and plenty of other Brian Jones fans, but lord knows, I’m not Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, or Andrew Loog Oldham. Besides, I have no idea how I’ll feel about all this in five years.

Meanwhile, I must confess that I almost did fall into that mindset of believing Brian was murdered. In June 2019, I was in Paris, on a trip across France led by my French teacher. Somewhere between trying not to lose my mind in a big city and taking awkward selfies at Jim Morrison’s grave, I, being overly chatty, started talking to one of my peers about music-related topics. I told her Brian’s entire life story as I understood it at that time, having been obsessed with him for a little over a month at that point. In my haste though, I unintentionally managed to convince her that Brian had been murdered. Despite not meaning to, I did end up entertaining the possibility, both for her and myself, for at least the rest of the night.

Besides, at the time, I was drawing blanks in trying to find hard evidence that Brian wasn’t murdered. I had one (water-logged) book saying he wasn’t, and a (shitty) movie and another book saying he was.

And then, at some point, I regained my senses, and not because of how ridiculous Brian’s death was when depicted in the movie Stoned. (For fuck’s sake, there was a shooting star in the sky at the moment of his death and he showed up as a ghost in the last five minutes). It really had everything to do with how much I regretted believing Kurt Cobain had been murdered.

I once again gathered my resolve and decided to go back on the hunt for more clues.

The second part of Brian Jones’ decline undoubtedly involves his tempestuous relationship with German-Italian actress Anita Pallenberg. The two started dating after a Rolling Stones concert in Munich on 14 September 1965 and developed a close bond, thanks in part to Brian’s ability to speak German. She gave him the confidence he needed to go against Mick and Keith and helped him become the fashion icon he is still remembered as today.

The Who’s Pete Townshend later had this to say: “We hung out a lot from about 1964 to 1966. Part of the time he was seeing Anita Pallenberg. She was a stunning creature. I mean literally stunning. It was quite hard to maintain one’s gaze. One time in Paris I remember they took some drug and were so sexually stimulated they could hardly wait for me to leave the room before starting to shag. I felt Brian was living on a higher plane of decadence than anyone I would ever meet.”

However, their relationship was also highly abusive. They would verbally and physically abuse each other. In fact, one time, Brian broke his wrist while the two were on a trip in Tangier. Though Brian said it was the result of an accident, Christopher Gibbs and Bill Wyman have both stated that it resulted from an altercation with Anita (though sources vary about whether he broke his wrist on a metal window frame or her face).

Of their relationship, Keith had this to say, “I would hear the thumping some nights, and Brian would come out with a black eye. Brian was a woman beater. But the one woman in the world you did not want to try and beat up on was Anita Pallenberg. Every time they had a fight, Brian would come out bandaged and bruised.”

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I’d go so far as to say that the one good thing that came out of their relationship was the fact that Brian composed the soundtrack for her movie Mord Und Totschlag (A Degree of Murder).

As I’ve previously written about, when Mick and Keith were charged with drug possession in February 1967, lawyers told the Glimmer Triplets (Mick, Keith, and Brian) that since they were the most visible of the Stones, they should leave the country. So, Brian and Anita left Britain, heading for Morocco. However, Brian was already in no condition to travel, and he fell ill with pneumonia in Toulouse. He ended up spending a few days there (including his 25th birthday), while Keith and Anita met up in Tangier. There, she started an affair with Keith behind Brian’s back (Keith even confirmed in his autobiography that she made the first move).

When Brian finally arrived, he could tell that there was something going on between Keith and Anita. Keith was apparently shy around girls at this stage in his life but was more confident around Anita. Meanwhile, Anita was now a bit more open around Keith. Not much is certain about what happened next. What is known is that Brian paid for the services of two prostitutes and that there was an incident between him and Anita that night. Keith said that he threw food at her and humiliated her. Bill claimed that he beat her to the point where she was scared for her life. The less said about Stoned, the better.

Regardless, whatever Brian’s actions really were, it was over between him and Anita. Keith convinced her that if they didn’t get the hell out of there, Brian might try and kill her. The next day, Mick, Keith, and Anita fled Morocco, leaving Brian stranded for the next two days.

Brian’s father later blamed his son’s downward spiral on Anita breaking his heart. Others, such as Linda Lawrence, suggest that it was Mick and Keith’s betrayal that hurt him far more than Anita’s.

In either case, he never really forgave Keith. Beyond that, his drug and alcohol consumption only worsened.

This part of the Stones’ history is… tricky. Of course, I can’t condone Brian for his behaviour, but Keith, and especially Anita weren’t entirely in the right in this situation. Ultimately, Keith and Anita stayed together until 1980 and had three children (one of whom unfortunately died in infancy). Besides, I understand Keith’s actions the most out of everyone, given that he had a noble intent in getting Anita away from Brian’s increasingly toxic behaviour. Of course, it’s also important to note that Brian and Anita were 25 and 24 respectively at the time of this incident, and beyond that, they were young and impulsive, with unfortunately predictable results, given that they both could be volatile.

I may have an infatuation with Brian, but sometimes, something’s got to give.

Fifty-two years after that clusterfuck, I was continuing my research into the life of L. B. H. Jones as the fiftieth anniversary of his death came and went. A week or two later, I decided, despite some reservations, to get Bill Wyman’s book, Stone Alone.

Say what you will about Bill (I know at some point I’ll be commenting about the travesty that was his relationship with Mandy Smith), but I figured that if I wanted to know about the early Rolling Stones, he’d be one of my best sources. At the very least, he’s the only one who’s given Brian any sort of credit for his accomplishments instead of solely focusing on his failures like Keith tends to do. As I was flipping through random pages, I learned that Bill had written about one of Brian’s many illegitimate children. He called her “Carol,” for the sake of anonymity, and in it, he discussed the matter of her being diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy. She and Bill even applied some of her symptoms to things Bill observed when he was with Brian. In that one instant, what happened to Brian the night he drowned seemed to make perfect sense.

One of the things that had made putting the clues together so difficult from the very start was that Brian had punctate haemorrhages (tiny bleeds normally found in shaken baby syndrome) in his brain, which indicated that he’d been thrashing around quite a bit in his final moments.

Temporal lobe epilepsy can’t be cured, but it is manageable to a degree with medications. Brian, however, was never diagnosed, which is why we can’t be certain that he had epilepsy. There is no doubt in my mind that if Brian did have epilepsy, it would’ve gotten worse over time, given that Brian received no treatment. Carol speculated that Brian likely chalked up many of his symptoms to being hungover. Even then, he might not have realized that something was happening with his brain.

While I was typing up my theories though, I remembered that I’d found his toxicology report not long beforehand. As I read it, I found out that the drug that was in his system was likely Mandrax, which he had been prescribed in the days before he died. When I looked up Mandrax, I discovered that it was a brand name for Quaaludes. It can cause mental confusion, ataxia, seizures, and impaired decision-making, among other negative side-effects. The impaired judgment would explain why Brian decided it’d be a great idea to go swimming after he’d had sleeping pills and alcohol…

I still didn’t consider my work done, but this was the closest I’d come to having answers yet.

Speaking of Brian and drug abuse, the third key to understanding what happened to Brian, is to look at his two drug convictions.

However, I already talked about this (quite recently too), so I’ll try and keep this section brief.

As Mick and Keith were formally charged with drug possession on 10 May 1967, Brian found his home being raided by police. Although he’d been tipped off about their arrival, they still managed to find a handbag with cannabis in it, as well as methamphetamines and cocaine. It could be argued that the evidence was planted, but there is no way to prove this. In court, Brian confessed to doing cannabis but denied doing anything stronger (even though there’s pictures of him tripping on LSD early in 1967). The Stones’ new manager, Allen Klein, told him to stay away from the other Stones. However, this had the effect of further isolating Brian when he needed his bandmates the most.

On 30 October 1967, Brian was sentenced to three months in prison for cannabis possession and another nine months for allowing cannabis to be smoked in his home. He was additionally fined. After a rough night in prison, he was released the next day, awaiting appeal, though he was left shaken by that experience.

On 12 December, Brian went to appeals court, where his psychologist argued that Brian would become suicidal if he went to prison. Brian was sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered by the courts to seek professional help.

Lord knows, at this point, Brian might have been making an honest-to-God effort to get off drugs, but on 21 May 1968, police raided his house again. This time, they found cannabis hidden away in a ball of wool in the process. This usually inspires more impassioned arguments from Brian Jones fans that the evidence was planted. Brian himself said that he would swear until the day he died that he didn’t commit this second offense. Because he was still on probation at the time of this second arrest, he was facing a long jail sentence if found guilty.

On 26 September, Brian was found guilty of drug possession for the second time. However, the same judge who sentenced him to a year in prison the first time took pity on him. Instead, he fined Brian and gave him a stern warning to not show up in court again.

As you can see with the attached pictures though, the trials only helped speed up Brian’s downward spiral, and he shut down mentally.

Honestly, I think the trials are a large part of the reason Brian went downhill as fast as he did.

Meanwhile, back in the present day, it was September now, and I was starting to get into the swing of being a full-time college student. While I was procrastinating, as usual, I was messing about on Google and I happened upon Brian’s autopsy report. Fact about me: this was far from my first time reading either autopsy reports or death certificates, so I decided to give it a look. After all, I could understand quite a bit of the medical jargon, which I blame on the fact that I loved reading medical books in elementary school. Couldn’t hurt, right?

Was the report perfunctory? Yes. Were there mistakes? A few that stood out, such as Brian’s height being given as 5′9″ when he was 5′6″, and his age being listed as twenty-six as opposed to twenty-seven.

However, that report did reinforce my most recent conclusions that Brian had overdosed on sleeping pills, which was exacerbated by alcohol.

I knew now that Mandrax had once been prescribed to treat anxiety and insomnia, which Brian likely suffered from following the stress of two drug trials that both resulted in convictions. This was also a time before doctors realized the addictive properties of Quaaludes. For all I know, Brian might not have been keeping the best track of how many pills he was taking (which is also how Keith Moon died).

Going back to the long, sordid story of Brian’s collapse, the fourth major reason he found himself being kicked out of the band he founded was that he stopped contributing to the Stones’ music.

In the documentary Crossfire Hurricane, Mick stated, “You certainly didn’t know if he was going to turn up and what state he was going to be in and then, what he was going to be able to do in that state. What job could you give him? And then, one time, when we sat around, on the floor, we played, in a circle, playing “No Expectations”. And he picked the guitar and played a very pretty line on it which you can hear on the record. And that was the last thing I remember him doing that was Brian. Or, the Brian that could contribute something very pretty and sensitive and it made the record sound wonderful.”

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Some people have compared Brian to someone who wants to quit but doesn’t want a confrontation (Brian, believe it or not, wasn’t exactly keen on confrontation). Instead, he puts in the smallest effort he can, if that. In fact, Brian had wanted to leave in 1967, but Mick convinced him to stay.

Perhaps Brian’s fate might have been different if he’d gone with his gut in 1967.

Brian still contributed to much of Beggars Banquet. By 1969 though, it seems as if he’d completely given up on the band he’d founded. He stopped showing up to the studio, and if he did come, he’d be too intoxicated to play. In fact, there were points where Mick and Keith would turn off his amp, if not tell him to just go home. It got to the point where he (barely) appears on two songs on Let It Bleed: “Midnight Rambler” and “You’ve Got the Silver.”

Frequent Stones collaborator Jack Nitzsche later said “Brian came up to me, looking pretty shaky, and asked me what I thought he should do- he didn’t know where he fit[ted] in. I told him to just pick up a guitar and start playing. Then he walked over to Mick and asked, ‘What should I play?’ Mick told him, ‘You’re a member of the band, Brian, play whatever you want.’ So he played something, but Mick stopped him and said, ‘No, Brian, not that- that’s no good.’ So Brian asked him again what to play and Mick told him again to play whatever he wanted. So Brian played something else, but Mick cut him off again- ‘No, that’s no good either, Brian.’”

Marianne Faithfull, Mick’s girlfriend at the time, told a friend that Brian had sent Mick several letters over a period of several weeks while Mick was away. One that she’d opened said “Please let me come back in. I’ll play bongos, anything, but please let me come back in.”

…I need a moment to recollect myself.

Some fifty years later, I was still trying to make it through my first semester of college. I got myself a book about the 27 Club, figuring there might be something that would aid me in my research. There, I learned that, reportedly, Brian had not only been taking Mandrax, but also Piriton (hay fever medication), black bombers (which had been prescribed to him a mere ten days before he died), and Valium. That’s on top of an inhaler that would later be found to cause heart palpitations.

A couple of months later, I decided to look up the side-effects of every drug that Brian had ever taken, be it proven fact or allegation. That part of my research isn’t quite finished yet, but what I’ve found with the five medications that Brian was taking around the time of his death proved to be particularly shocking.

For the sake of brevity, I can’t list every side-effect. What I did notice is that some included side-effects of tachycardia/bradycardia, confusion, loss of coordination, impaired decision making, hyperactivity, seizures, and stomach problems. Some, like the uncoordinated behaviour, were noted by those who were there, such as Janet Lawson, who realized that Brian had taken sleeping pills that night, based on him muttering that he’d taken “sleepers”. Others could be a no-brainer, given that Brian had an enlarged heart and liver, in addition to suffering from bronchial troubles and pleurisy.

My immediate thought was, “Jesus, Brian, what the hell were you doing to yourself?”

And now for the final part of Brian’s story: the last twenty-five days of his life.

The Stones wanted to go on tour again, this being their first in two years. Due to Brian’s convictions, Stones management discovered that he probably wouldn’t be able to receive a work visa in the U.S. On 8 June 1969, Mick and Keith drove down to Cotchford Farm to tell Brian that he was fired. They brought Charlie along in case Brian decided to put up a fight. However, Brian agreed to back out gracefully, possibly knowing that he’d burned too many bridges at this point. The next day, Brian released a statement, which painted the decision to leave as being his own. He capped it off with “We had a friendly meeting and agreed that an amicable termination, temporary or permanent, was the only answer. The only solution was to go our separate ways, but we shall still remain friends. I love those fellows.”

As I’ve said though, how Brian truly felt about this turn of events will forever remain a mystery.

In the days before he died, it has been suggested by those close to him that Brian was planning on starting another band. Some believe he was going to bring in Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon. Jimi’s camp has since denied that Brian ever approached Jimi. There are also lingering questions regarding whether Brian had given up hard drugs or if he was still taking them. I doubt the latter, considering the well-documented stress of the drug trials.

The picture above was taken nine days before Brian died. Honestly, I do believe there was still some hope for Brian (I can even see it in his eyes). Whether he would’ve recovered or not and whether he’d still be alive today will forever remain up to conjecture, as that’s another possibility that followed Brian to the grave.

Wednesday, 2 July 1969 was host to hot, muggy weather that exacerbated Brian’s asthma. He spent his last day alive with at least three people: Anna Wohlin, his 22-year-old, Swedish girlfriend, Janet Lawson, a registered nurse who was dating Stones minder Tom Keylock, and Frank Thorogood, a 43-year-old builder who’d been doing work on Brian’s property at the time.

Details of Brian’s final day are sketchy, and there are some disagreements over what exactly the people involved did throughout the day. For example, there are disagreements about whether they watched television or not. Some would argue that this is clear evidence that Brian was murdered. I would posit that three of the four parties involved had been drinking. Even if everyone was sober, in a situation such as this, human memory can be extremely unreliable. For example, hundreds of witnesses were interviewed on the night Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, but no two accounts are alike. What we know had to be stitched together from witness accounts in which everyone claimed to have seen or heard something different.

What seems to be the most agreed-upon version of Brian’s death is that he decided to go swimming. Anna was reluctant and had to be persuaded to join in. Janet, the only sober person among the group, decided against swimming, most likely to keep an eye out for everyone else. Janet said in her witness report (recorded on the morning of July 3, 1969) that she strongly felt that Frank and Brian were in no condition to swim. She also recalled that Brian had great difficulty in standing on the diving board, being helped not-so-successfully by Frank. Even after that, his movements in the water seemed sluggish.

I don’t know, but if that were me, I would’ve called emergency services right there and then.

According to Janet, Anna was the first to return to the house, followed by Frank about ten minutes later. When Janet next went out to check on Brian sometime around midnight, she found him face-down in the deep end, and “immediately sensed the worst.”

She ran back to the house to get Frank and Anna, and with their help, got Brian out of the pool. She immediately began resuscitative efforts, despite knowing Brian was already dead. Anna later claimed that she felt Brian’s hand briefly grip hers. However, when paramedics arrived, they pronounced Brian dead in the early morning hours of 3 July 1969.

Brian’s official cause of death was given as drowning by immersion in fresh water, partly as a result of liver damage and the ingestion of drugs and alcohol. To be precise, 1,720 micro-gms of an “amphetamine-like substance” and the alcohol equivalent of three-and-a-half pints of beer were found in Brian’s system.

In short, it was death by misadventure.

As seems to be the case when a young celebrity dies under tragic circumstances, conspiracy theories have since risen regarding Brian’s death. The following list is taken from Paul Trynka’s book. For the sake of brevity (such as it is), some of these will be combined into one section.

1. The most predominant of these theories states that Frank Thorogood drowned Brian. Whether it was second-degree murder or manslaughter as a result of rough horseplay will usually vary between sources. Brian reportedly asked Janet to get his inhaler shortly before his death. The story then goes on to state that Frank drowned Brian and participated little in the efforts to save Brian’s life. It should be noted that Janet did state in her original testimony that she’d asked him to call emergency services.

The main reason people will give about why they believe that Brian was murdered is that Tom Keylock claimed to have heard Frank confess on his deathbed to the murder. However, Frank’s daughter, Jan Bell, has denied that such an exchange could have happened. There was never a point where Keylock had spent any time alone with her father. Furthermore, he’d only been admitted with a respiratory problem, and thus could not have known that he was on his deathbed. She also claimed that on the morning of Brian’s death, Frank saw an argument between Mick, Keith, and Brian over the name “Rolling Stones.” During the fight, Keith allegedly pulled a knife on Brian. If this did happen, it was likely earlier in the year.

In addition, Janet and Anna have since claimed that Brian was murdered. Janet later claimed that much of her original testimony was suggested to her by investigating officers and that Tom told her to hide the fact that she was his girlfriend. Anna claimed that she was spirited back to Sweden in the immediate aftermath of Brian’s death, where she allegedly miscarried Brian’s child. One of Anna’s friends later said that her belief that Brian had been murdered was a recent development. It’s also notable that neither witness came forward until after Frank died. Many of Anna’s recollections about Brian, such as him being focused on music are also contradicted by others who were close to Brian at the time.

Keith later said, “I knew Frank Thorogood, who made a ‘deathbed confession’ that he’d killed Brian Jones by drowning him in the swimming pool, where Brian’s body was found some minutes after other people had seen him alive. But I’m always wary of deathbed confessions because the only person there is the person he’s supposed to have said it to, some uncle, daughter, or whatever. ‘On his deathbed he said he killed Brian.’ Whether he did or not I don’t know. Brian had bad asthma and he was taking Quaaludes and Tuinals, which are not the best things to dive under water on. Very easy to choke on that stuff. He was heavily sedated. He had a high tolerance for drugs, I’ll give him that. But weigh that against the coroner’s report, which showed that he was suffering from pleurisy, an enlarged heart, and a diseased liver. Still, I can imagine the scenario of Brian being so obnoxious to Thorogood and the building crew he had working on Brian’s house that they were just pissing around with him. He went under and didn’t come up. But when somebody says, ‘I did Brian,’ at the very most I’d put it down to manslaughter. All right, you may have pushed him under, but you weren’t there to murder him. He pissed off the builders, whining son of a bitch. It wouldn’t have mattered if the builders were there or not, he was at that point in his life when there wasn’t any.”

(You’re telling me he can apologize for telling Mick to get a vasectomy, but not for even a fraction of the shit he’s said about Brian?)

In 2005, this version of events was turned into the appalling movie Stoned, which featured Tom Keylock as an adviser and was based on claims made by Janet Lawson and Anna Wohlin. The director, Stephen Wooley, claimed to have researched the material for this story over a period of ten years. Really, it feels less like ten years of research, and more like one week. From what I could tell, it did seem that Brian’s death was manslaughter, but honestly, it was too confusing. Frank seemed damn determined to drown Brian in that moment. The movie (quite literally) drowned on arrival.

2. In 1983, Nicholas Fitzgerald wrote Brian Jones: The Inside Story of a Rolling Stone. In it, he claimed to have been a close friend of Brian Jones (his cousin, Tara Browne, actually was a close friend of Brian’s). Not only that, but he claimed to have seen Brian’s “murder.” He claimed that he and 19-year-old Richard Cadbury (who passed away before the story came out) visited Brian at Cotchford Farm the day he died. Allegedly, Brian told Fitzgerald all about his plans to start up a supergroup with John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix, saying “Don’t say anything… it could be dangerous!”

(As keen as I am about the idea of John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, and Brian Jones being in the same band, you can probably tell that I think this story is a load of bullshit.)

After Fitzgerald and his friend visited a pub, they returned to Cotchford Farm at about 11:15 PM, leaving their car some distance from the house. (Keep in mind, the coroner said that Brian died somewhere between 11:30 PM and 12:00 AM). There, he and his friend saw three men holding Brian under the water, whilst two other people stood by. Suddenly, a man, likely Keylock, jumped out of the bushes and told Fitzgerald to scram, lest he be next.

He refused to give a formal statement to the police. What I don’t think the dumb fuck was counting on was that police would investigate his ass, considering that withholding information could’ve resulted in him being charged with being an accessory to murder after the fact. The police determined that the evidence Fitzgerald gave was “bizarre, full of unverifiable claims that, he, too, had escaped murder attempts, that Cadbury might have been involved with the murderers, and that Cadbury, too, had died ‘in mysterious circumstances”. Detective Chief Superintendent J. F. Reece summarized it best when he said that Fitzgerald was a “Walter Mitty type person” and that he’d come up with the allegations to promote his book. In fact, the book itself had even more ludicrous allegations, such as how Tom Keylock had overseen the whole thing. It got to the point where Eddie Kramer called the story “silly.” John Lennon, meanwhile, believed that Brian was another victim of the drugs scene, and even dreaded him coming on the phone (another reason I don’t believe the supergroup was in the cards for Brian’s future, regardless). Also, Fitzgerald mostly relied on the testimony of those who had already passed away, such as Suki Potier, one of Brian’s girlfriends, who died in a car crash along with her husband in 1981. One of the few living witnesses Fitzgerald claimed to have run into, James Phelge, denied ever having met him.

Also, pro-tip, if you’re going to claim to have been a close friend of someone you’re claiming was murdered, don’t sell your story to the tabloid that got him busted for drug possession. Just saying.

3. In 1990, A. E. Hotchner published Blown Away: The Rolling Stones and the Death of the Sixties. In it, he claimed that Brian’s childhood friend, Dick Hattrell, and a random Cockney named "Marty” had knowledge that Brian was murdered. He claimed that Rich (sounds better to me than Dick) visited Brian shortly before he died and became worried about him. Later, he bumped into someone who claimed to have witnessed Brian’s murder. Marty claimed to have witnessed the murder, claiming that two other women were there, including Linda Lawrence (mother of one of Brian’s sons) who was spirited out of the country following Brian’s death.

In reality, she last saw Brian in 1968.

Similarly, Hattrell has since stated that the story was nonsense; he never visited Brian at Cotchford, and he never said Brian was murdered. Marty has since kept his mouth shut.

Really, it just doesn’t hold up when closely scrutinized.

4. David Gibson claimed to the Brighton Evening Argus that, while he was fitting carpets at Brian’s home, Brian and Anna were absent throughout the better part of the day. When they returned later in the evening, Brian begged Gibson not to leave. Gibson, meanwhile, believed Brian had been murdered and that Tom Keylock was responsible. Some, like Sam Cutler, claim that Gibson saw Princess Margaret at Cotchford Farm, which has led to speculation that Brian was killed to protect her reputation. Gibson never went to the police, and probably believed that he’d been subject to threats and murder attempts. However, aside from Brian’s paranoia and belief that someone was out to get him, Gibson’s story doesn’t line up with many of the other conspiracy theories.

5. Geoffrey Giuliano in his 1994 book Paint It Black claimed that a man named “Joe” said that he’d held Brian’s head under the water for shits and giggles (not something one would normally do for shits and giggles). The thing is though, Giuliano’s book largely recycled content from previous books on the subject, and beyond that, made elementary mistakes, such as claiming that Frank had fled the scene, when in reality, he was there when police officer Albert Evans arrived at about 12:10 AM. It was later found that the tape he’d sourced some of this information from was a fake, made for American radio programmes in New York.

6. Given that Tom Keylock was a bit of a dishonest/disliked character in life, it should come as no surprise that some of the theories focus on him too. In 2009, Sam Cutler claimed that after Brian’s death, Allen Klein (himself a sleazeball) hired some PI’s to investigate Brian’s death and that they’d discovered that Tom was responsible. While Tom did try to pin the blame on Frank and told Janet to conceal her relationship with him, and it is known that he apparently stole some of Brian’s belongings after he died, that does not make one a murderer. It’ll certainly make him a slimeball, but that doesn’t mean he’s a murderer. Meanwhile, in 2013, Cutler claimed confusion as to whether the Klein report even existed. I think at this point, it’s safe to call it a hoax.

In addition, while it is more likely that Tom would have been the murderer instead of Frank, he does have a rather rock-solid alibi in that he was at Olympic Studios and was the one who received the call that Brian had died. Really, any theories that try to say he masterminded a huge plot to have Brian killed and make it appear as an accident tend to raise more questions than it answers.

Let’s all make no mistake though, the police did jump to conclusions rather quickly, there are several obvious mistakes in the autopsy findings, and not to mention, police failed to control the area, which is likely how Tom was able to steal Brian’s belongings and possibly have some destroyed.

Meanwhile, I myself believe that Brian’s death was accidental. Likely, it was the result of a cocktail of prescription medications, alcohol consumption, maybe a side-effect or two resulting from that, and possibly even heart failure or liver disease. Perhaps Brian fainted (which, I honestly hope for, given how painful it is to drown), and with no one around to notice his plight, he quietly slipped away.

I know there’s no way to prove this, given that the police don’t have a good reason to dig up Brian’s bones and it’s probably far too late for a second toxicology report, but given the available evidence I’ve been able to find, I believe this is the most likely version of events.

Truly, a sad ending for a man, who didn’t even have a chance to get back on his feet before fate (and a lifetime of drug/alcohol abuse) intervened.

Whenever I read about Brian’s life story, I always find myself interested by the mistakes, intrigue, and betrayal that seemed to plague Brian’s life from the outset. There are a multitude of what-ifs that honestly make this tale haunting, such as what might’ve happened had Mick and Keith not bullied Brian so severely. There’s also what might have happened if both the Stones and the authorities had better understood the effects of drug use and had the resources and compassion to better deal with Brian’s situation. Most hauntingly, there’s the question of what might’ve happened had someone been near Brian in his final moments and had the opportunity to save him.

I think the biggest reason I keep coming back to his story is that his life as a whole was very conflicting. It honestly inspires both condemnation and sympathy/pity, even in me.

Even if Mick and Keith would rather forget that Brian was ever a part of their band, it is my honest belief that people will continue to discover Brian Jones, whether it be through the 27 Club or through some other means, and I hope that they take the time to learn his story.

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Sources/Further Reading: https://www.drugs.com/illicit/quaaludes.html https://asthma.net/living/swimming-pools-triggers/ https://www.drugs.com/sfx/ergotamine-side-effects.html https://www.drugs.com/sfx/valium-side-effects.html https://www.drugs.com/sfx/amphetamine-side-effects.html https://www.drugs.com/sfx/chlorpheniramine-side-effects.html Stone Alone by Bill Wyman Brian Jones: The Making of the Rolling Stones by Paul Trynka Brian Jones: The Untold Life and Mysterious Death of a Rock Legend by Laura Jackson https://clearcomfort.com/why-asthma-allergy-sufferers-should-avoid-chlorine-pools/ http://timeisonourside.com/chron1967.html http://timeisonourside.com/chron1969.html http://www.timeisonourside.com/chron1963.html http://www.timeisonourside.com/chron1962.html https://www.inflationtool.com/british-pound/1963-to-present-value?amount=5 https://people.com/music/anita-pallenberg-rolling-stones-keith-richards-brian-jones-love-triangle/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/the-27-club-a-brief-history-17853/ https://ultimateclassicrock.com/brian-jones-found-dead/ https://www.denofgeek.com/us/culture/music/281978/the-rolling-stones-and-the-mystery-of-brian-jones-death https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/brian-jones-sympathy-for-the-devil-182761/ https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/15989/brian-jones-it-was-murder https://ultimateclassicrock.com/brian-jones-murdered/ https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/just-why-was-brian-jones-so-important-to-the-rolling-stones/ https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/obituary-brian-jones-189861/ https://www.oxfordtreatment.com/prescription-drug-abuse/tuinal/

#brian jones #the rolling stones #mick jagger #keith richards #charlie watts #bill wyman #ian stewart #this got long #but i felt i should explain all of this in one go #rock and roll #cw: death #cw: drugs #cw: domestic abuse #cw: drowning #man brian's life was a bit of a clusterfuck

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allsystemsarenotgo · 4 years

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A friend and I were talking one day, and she shared this with me.

She was much like me, raised with a quarter between the knees, terrified of the things we were taught to avoid and trying to live reasonably noble lives. She wasn't allowed Birth Control for religious reasons (pro-life) as well as to prevent enablism. Her family was much more religious than mile, though I still went to church during my Sophomore, Junior, and Senior years of high school.

She married a guy 10 years older than herself, who was a long-time routine customer of her family's business. They married right after she graduated high school, long before she applied to higher education.

She is a nurse now. She has 3 kids, works long hours at a hospital, and her husband is a successful farmer as he always has been. She struggled at times, but she made it through.

She knows life would have been easier without the first child, but she was innocent and naiive and I think she realizes that she jumped in the deep end of the pool before learning how to swim.

I did the same thing.

All through high school I pledged to abstinence until marriage. I hated everything to do with sex. The topic, the drama, the action, the result. I wanted nothing to do with it.

But I also never dated through grade school at all. I never had a girlfriend. Plenty of crushes (M.S. above being one of them), but just as many denials. Because I didn't drink, smoke, do drugs, have FFA animals, or play athletics, I also wasn't a member of any social group. I was always the kid in the corner of the cafeteria scarfing food down in 5 minutes and sleeping the other 20, or asking to go to a teacher's classroom, where it was serene and quiet.

My freshman year of college, I even wrote an essay on abstinents for English class. That really didn't go over well in regards to having to read it out loud. There might as well have been fruit flying at me.

My dorm was set up such that we had 3 private bedrooms that shared a living space and bathroom. One of the roommates always had girls over, and he never tried to be quiet (or if he did, he failed...badly).

So those two things were my indoctrination to college life. Getting judged and leered at for writing an abstinence essay, and having to listen to a roommate multiple times a week.

Towards the very end of my freshman year, a girl from high school messaged me. We started talking, and she admitted that she had always had a crush on me and was too shy to ever say anything.

Error #1: For no good reason whatsoever, I agreed to formulate a relationship with this female

So when I moved home from the dorms, I hung out with the lass a few times, but my parents were moving out of the country and closer to my school, so I could live at home. That meant that this would now be a 1.5-hour-each-way medium-distance relationship.

So every 4th or 6th weekend during the remainder of that summer and into the fall semester, I would drive up and spend a day with her. Sometimes, I would drive her out of the country and into the city to give her a glimpse of escape (it was very impoverished where we grew up).

Error #2: Doing whatever made her happy

I really enjoyed the time that we spent together. She got me a purity necklace for Christmas that year. She said she understood that my preference meant something to me.

But then, something changed. She would start dropping enuindos and jokes and send me photos that I didn't ask for.

Error #3: Not standing up for myself

She said that I meant something to her, and asked me if she meant something to me. At the time, I did not comprehend that as a trap...but I wanted to make her happy, so I said "yes".

The next thing I know, she is booking a hotel for us for Valentine's day. Wherein, I learned a thing or two or five or ten that I really wasn't interested in learning in the first place.

-Provides Clorox to help scrub the thoughts from your mind-

After that, she wanted me to come see her more and more often. But I was tied up with school and life.

Mind you, we usually had a phone call every night, or at least every other night. Same time, right before bed. Sometimes we would fall asleep on the phone with eachother.

Error #4: Accepting anything as fact

Well one night, I called her, and she answered...but it was noisy in the background, like she was driving. But she never talked while driving, and wouldn't answer the phone with family in the car.

She said she was in a friend's car and they were going to the beach for the night, which was completely reasonable for the time of year and her group of friends. She cut the conversation short saying they had arrive, so we bid our greeting. But she didn't hang up, and something told me that I shouldn't either. So I didn't.

"Who was that?"

"Don't mind him. He was just calling to check on me. He's controlling like that."

"He sounds like a jerk"

"Enough about him. He won't do this."

-Provides more clorox-

And that's how I found out that her primal needs were more important than our "relationship".

Unfortunately, shortly after I broke up with her, I was sent a photo of her quite visibly pregnant. Fortunately, the timetable did not add up to Valentine's day (aside of the fact that it was physically/biologically 95% impossible).

That summer, I started a job at the student newspaper. Right off the bat, one of the graphic artists and I got along very well. We spent way too much time at work talking to eachother and goofing off, instead of working. Enough so that our boss took notice and things got tense for a bit with him. We still cranked out work no problem, but we were both too young to understand workplace policy and procedure when it comes to "dating but not dating", which is basically exactly what we were doing. We spent alot of time together. I would go to her dorm after class and we would watch movies and just goof off or do whatever. We enjoyed time together.

Error #1: So cliché. So, so cliché.

So Valentine's day rolls around, and she asks 'the question'.

So something in biology: There is a term called "Once an animal has the taste of blood, they will always hunt for it." Unfortunately, humans can sometimes be considered a sub-species of the animal kingdom.

Like the dumbass that I am, I accept to the terms and conditions.

And at the end of the night, she asks: "So are we officially dating now?"

"I...I guess?", I answered nervously.

Errors #2 to #457: Not escaping

And just like that, I was suckered into nearly 2.5 years of having a FWB while having to, very creatively at times, mask it as a legitimate relationship.

We enjoyed the time we spent together.

We enjoyed going places together.

My mum liked her, her parents liked me. (Dad was skeptical at best and thought I could do better)

The small issue: I struggled to communicate at times. I didn't know how to find my voice, so there were times that I would have to text her how I felt. Sometimes I would hide in a corner just so I could cry. (I later learned of my autism, and it all made sense and I learned how to resolve this)

The big issue: I was completely burned out on intimacy. After almost 2.5 years of emulating laboratory rabbits, I was done. My usefulness had expired.

The biggest issue: We were both suffering academically. We had no common interests at all anymore, and we had put eachother ahead of our own academics so much that we were both risking academic expulsion.

So we mutually agreed to break up.

She dropped out of university (and never went back or finished her schooling), and I changed majors twice before getting my Bachelor of Science.

My first relationship lasted from June 2009 to April 2010.

My second "relationship" lasted from February 2011 until May 2012 (Although we started spending time together in significant amounts starting August 2010)

I have not had a girlfriend since May 2012.

I had one friend in my senior year of college, who gave me some non-physical affection while also keeping me firmly locked in the friendzone. But quality time, by itself, only goes so far.

I have not had any physical affection since May 2012.

I have not spent quality time with a female since May 2013.

For most of that time, from May 2013 to August 2019, I really didn't mind it at all. I have been so tied up in working, hobbies, and life in general, that I completely ignored women.

But as my birthday loomed near in October 2019, it donned on me....I was on a crash course to being eternally lonely.

So I have tried online dating. I have gone on a few first dates, but no second dates.

Sometimes, I want to give up. The fight just doesn't seem worth the reward.

And honestly?

Sometimes I feel exactly like my friend's remarks at the top of this post. Sometimes I wish I would have been a little more rebellious, a little more care-free, a little more out-there.

But at the same time, ...

Sometimes I wish that neither relationship would have ever happened.

That I would have never learned the true definition of intimacy.

That I would have never done whatever it took to make the other person happy.

That I wouldn't have been such an easy push-over.

That I would have stuck to my initial pledge in life

That I would have spoke up more and defended myself.

All I am now, is damaged product.

I don't truly know how to love.

I don't truly know how to feel.

I don't truly know how to be myself.

I don't truly know how to be intimate.

I am human, I am male, so of course I have my moments. But I don't want that to be the reason for a relationship. I want it to be the least-important factor, or not a factor at all.

I want a relationship founded on trust, honesty, fortitude, common interests, personality, maybe even a little faith.

Not intimacy.

I just want to not be invisible, or to only have one attribute visible.

I want to be seen for all the other attributes.

I am not A-sexual. I still feel emotions and feelings. I just don't want to let them out of the locked box which contains them. Not without lots of context and preparedness.

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