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silver-itallics · 3 months

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Warnings: canon typical violence, heavy angst, hurt no comfort, you guys will be mad at me

a/n: I was thinking about when Leigh mentioned in the saw commentary that someone wrote a monologue from Lawrence's point of view after leaving the bathroom and I wanted to write one for Adam

"I'm a liar?"

"I wouldn't lie to you."

Liar, lies. Seems like either way, Adam is getting screwed over.

He sits in the dark, dingy bathroom, his eyes still struggling to adjust. His throat is raw and aching from all the screaming and crying. Not even the hardest sex could have done that to him.

God, he's really gonna die having fucked one person.

All of his relationships were mediocre, even the platonic ones. Scott treated him like shit, the guy probably hasn't even noticed that he's gone.

Has anyone?

Lawrence is someone that would be noticed, he's got a wife and kids for fucks sake.

"I've got a family too, Lawrence! I don't talk to them anymore, that's my mistake. A mistake I'd like to fix."

One of the last things he remembers at the apartment is scribbling "Call mom?" On a crumpled post it and sticking it to the wall. The paper has probably fallen down by now. Forgotten.

Are his parents even looking for him?

Probably not. They probably haven't noticed either.

Everything that Adam does ends up screwing him in the end, just like this. But he can't really blame anyone but himself, can he? Not even $200 was worth being stuck in this bathroom. Doesn't even soften the fact that he'll probably be here forever.

The money was meant to go for his food. Not a camera, not developing fluid, not even that shiny new pokemon game Adam wanted. Food.

A necessity he barely even had.

"Why? Call it my need to eat."

He remembers snapping at Lawrence like it was the most obvious answer. But food is a luxury even Adam can't afford. The guy lives off of ramen noodles and sodas from the gas station. Sometimes he even wonders why he never gained any weight since he ate such shit.

His mom was never the greatest cook, but he'd take soggy meatloaf and unseasoned mashed potatoes any day.

At the thought, Adam's stomach rumbles. His guts ache from hunger, but he's not a stranger to it. That's usually how his day goes.

He can't even blame Jigsaw for trapping him here. But in all honesty, Adam has done so much self sabotaging, that he's probably done worse to himself than the man that left him here.

He's felt worse betrayal than when the dead man stood up, peeled the fake skin off his skull and left him here.

"Game over!"

Dead man. Adam squints in the darkness, trying to make out Zep's corpse. He's not even sure why. The first time he saw a dead body, or what he thought was one, he puked his guts out into the tub. Couldn't even keep down his latest meal.

He'll probably starve even quicker now.

The room smells like blood, and his fingers are sticky from the same substance. Not only is he a voyeur, he's a killer. Maybe his last girlfriend was right: he's too angry.

Adam isn't very good at anatomy, at least the human side of it. But he knows he broke through layers of skin and bone when he'd crushed through the hospital orderly's skull.

"It's the rules!"

Knowing now, he feels guilty. Awful, even. Guy probably had a family too, even if he was a bit of a creep. Where do you draw the line of deserving a family? What's so bad that you no longer are worthy of someone related by blood? Adam's probably the worst person to ask that.

He'd stormed out on his parents after a petty argument, an excuse to leave. One that he'd been wanting to have since he was seventeen. Somehow, he'd convinced himself that they wouldn't accept him, even if they let him drop out of high school and didn't even call the cops when he left. But was that tolerance or pure disinterest?

Maybe he's not a total waste of time, since his mom had called not long before he got his power knocked out the same way he was.

"Adam, your father's not angry anymore."

Lawrence had a home, a family. A good one, too. The pictures he saw of Diana and Alison made him crack a smile. At least before the one with them tied up. He shivers, probably both from disgust and blood loss.

His shoulder aches, oozing blood all over his shitty thrift store clothes. Adam understands why Doctor Gordon left. He has some place to go, people to welcome him home with open arms. Most places Adam went, he wasn't even noticed.

He kicks with his right foot in anger, the chain rattling as he does. The metal bites into his skin and the amount of pain he's in is just frustrating at this point. Adam screams, but his voice is raw and broken.

As much as he hopes the doctor will come back for him, at least he has half the brain to know that Lawrence probably won't make it. The man that he's had the first physical touch from in months is probably bleeding out in the sewers, and there's nothing he can do about it.

He doesn't even have a choice to cut off his foot like the doctor did. Sure, the blood loss will probably kill him, but Adam is sick of waiting around for something to happen. A job to drop, a phone call.

But he can't even do that.

The hacksaw he found in the toilet had snapped in half. A result of his ever consuming anger. Seems like everything he does leads back to that.

"I see a strange mix of someone who's angry, yet apathetic. But mostly just pathetic."

If Adam isn't angry at the world, he's angry with himself. He feels like a waste of space on the good days and a tumor on the face of the earth on the bad ones. At least with photography he felt like he had a purpose, even if it was supplying creeps and weirdos with material. He wasn't really helping anyone, was he? Even Tapp ended up dead.

But Lawrence helps people. Even if he thought the guy was initially a jerk, Adam admires him. Misses the man's blood stained hands as he cupped his cheeks.

"I wanted to be a vet."

That way, he'd benefit the world somehow. Even if he was pulling tennis balls out of dogs' throats or cleaning up puke every day. He'd much rather smell vomit, as he's getting quite sick of the coppery scent of blood.

"That's nonsense. I've seen kids with brain cancer graduate high school from a hospital bed."

"They got further than I ever did."

Adam has been pretty able bodied his whole life. While he'd consider it a nuisance that his body doesn't match up with his own view of himself, that's not a disability.

Maybe his parents wouldn't even mind, maybe they'd help him with the cost of surgery and injections. But he hadn't even told them. His parents barely know who he is. Adam barely knows himself.

"What do voyeurs see when they look in the mirror?"

Nothing. The answer is nothing.

He's like a leech, sucking the energy and luck out of everyone around him.

Now he's left to sit in his own grave- metaphorically and literally. He probably won't even have the luxury of being buried or cremated.

Hopefully someone will come around and put him out of his misery. Like a calf with two heads or a dog with rabies.

But until then, he's left to wait.

#adam faulkner stanheight #adam stanheight #chainshipping #saw 2004 #sawposting #angst #saw #writing #leigh whannell

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billystoilet · 2 years

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let’s talk about Diana Gordon.

I think she’s a very smart little girl, used to her parents being absent most of the time, getting everything she asks for, being put in the best private schools. Everyone views her as a little girl that learned how to be quiet and obey at a young age, but that’s not the case. Of course she’s still young as she loves toys, candy, coloring, cartoons, but she definitely has a lot of thoughts and is very matured. She’s mostly closer to her mother, but even then she doesn’t tell her everything. She sees how cold her mother is to her father and how when her father gets called into work, he hurries like he doesn’t want to be anywhere more. She noticed how one day when he arrived home she smelled woman’s perfume on him and she knew it wasn’t her mother’s, but she just smiled and said she missed him. In the scene she tells Lawrence “you’re not going to leave us, right daddy?” and when he asks who told her that she just looked away with “no one,” it shows she has thought about it for a while. I also believe she feels closed off with her feelings, nobody ever asks her how she feels about anything. In the adam lives au, I think she is quiet when first meeting Adam, but over time she begins to open up to him and tells him what she’s really thinking. Meeting Adam was good for Diana, after being held at gunpoint by Zep, she felt more like pulling back more than before. They’re both two people that never felt the strong connection to their parents where they could tell them anything, but it was definitely a shock to Adam when Diana told him she’s sure her parents are getting a divorce. She didn’t want them to, but she knew it’s what had to happen and she’s already came to terms with it. She’s learning how to find her voice.

#this is so self indulgent oh my #saw #saw franchise #saw films #diana gordon #lawrence gordon #alison gordon #adam faulkner stanheight #billystoiletpost #also guys hey #stepdad adam #i need them to have a bond and i think they actually would

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adrianicsea · 1 year

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I saw your tags, you can’t hide from me. So who’s the knight and who’s the lord in chainshipping?

lawrence is the knight, and adam is the lord!! it might be easy to assume the opposite (lawrence has wealth, status, and conventionally good looks, not to mention he's played by literal blueblood cary elwes; meanwhile, adam is broke and living on the outskirts of society, both geographically and socially)...

HOWEVER!! we see lawrence equated with knighthood in the original screenplay for the first movie, when john taunts adam for killing zep with the line, "the pawn has done what the knight couldn't do. you've killed an innocent man." referring to lawrence's failure to kill adam, and by extension equating adam with the pawn. (more on that in a minute.) when we think of knights today, beyond the armor and swords of it all, we tend to think of the knight's sworn duty and devotion to their lord/cause of choice. lawrence throughout saw 1 is married to his work, and he's also sworn to the duty of protecting and upholding his family, even though we gradually learn that he's grown dispassionate in his marriage. but it's still his duty to be a good husband and a good father, no matter how he personally feels about it!

when we see him again in saw 7, lawrence has lost his family, but in exchange, he's sworn fealty to jigsaw-- and he proves himself to be jigsaw's best apprentice by being the only one to unfailingly carry out john's orders and wishes, never disobeying him or seeking more power or freedom for himself. as profoundly sad as that is, it's also another example of lawrence's duty-oriented, knightlike mindset. (a final note on lawrence and knights, going back to the chess metaphors-- when a knight moves on the board, it must always move in the shape of a capital L. just like lawrence!)

now, with adam, it's a little harder to read him as a lord, because he doesn't have any sort of noble bearing or status; actually, the movie goes pretty far out of its way to show us that adam is broke and on the social margins. and, again, john compares him to a pawn in the original screenplay.

BUT!! the thing that makes pawns special in chess is that they're the only piece that can be promoted, all the way up to a king or a queen. and looking back at lawrence and adam-- a knight needs a lord to swear fealty to, a set of ideals or an inspirational figure. arguably, lawrence finds this in adam, after adam's death; lawrence has lost his family, and though he has his work as an apprentice, he's only doing it because he has nothing else to live for at that point. or, if you love reading too much into things (like me), because he started his apprenticeship to try and get closer to adam, and kept going until he passed that point of no return. even once lawrence had to have known or suspected that adam was dead, that no amount of atrocities lawrence committed would bring adam back to him, he still had to keep going.

all of lawrence's relationship with adam (or with the idea of adam) is predicated on this idea of atonement and dedication that is destined to go unrequited and unseen. like a knight to their lord, lawrence can never touch or embrace adam again, not unless it's to protect and soothe him, and then he's not even able to do THAT. but lawrence keeps going anyway, in adam's memory if not in his honor.

#asks #anonniemouse #saw #chainshipping #this is not my most eloquent writing but we ball!! i just wanted to get it finished and posted

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thunderdomes-s · 3 years

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vulnerability

#this one took me almost 14h to complete and im not even sure if i really like it #like. larry's head sucks. it looks terrible but i spent 4 hours of my day on it and it was the best i could do #his eye was a pain in the ass to make look a bit respectable #but i think adam and zep look good #saw #saw movies #lawrence gordon #adam faulkner stanheight #chainshipping #sawedit #saw fanart #benny worm makes art

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ghostgib · 4 years

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Underrated Saw I Characters.

Zep Hindle - He was an awful guy, truly. Yet, Michael Emerson pulled playing Zep off so well, he was creepy, gross but an amazing side-villan who deserves much more attention. The iconic "Its the rules" line has become more of a meme within the fandom now but his creepy voice is amazing. Very Power hungry and it's made clear within the movie.

Diana/Alison Gordon - Both amazing, strong characters who were able to withstand and escape Zep, incredible actress' both of them and I don't see enough love for either of them. Makenzie Vega was amazing and pulled probably some of the best child acting ive seen in a long time, Monica Potter- played a strong mother who fought Zep and I stan all of that.

David (Detective) Tapp - Boy, I LOVE Tapps character development and this isn't looked into enough. How he goes from determined to find Jigsaw to needing to find Jigsaw. Obssessive, litterally crazy, insane after Sing dies. How his blind need to catch Jigsaw gets him killed. The character development for every character in this film fuels me, but seeing Detective Tapp fall into literal instanity after Sings death and getting progressively worse (how his room is covered in arcticles, papers, pictures; how he paid Adam to stalk Lawrence etc, how he was litterally discharged from the police force because he was so torn up over Sing but CONTINUED anyway) is just amazing. Heavily heavily underated character, Danny Glover pulled this role off so well. There isn't enough talk on Tapp.

Detective Sing - Not in it for long but Tapp and Sing as a crime fighting duo were amazing. Sing was far more level headed than Tapp but he stuck by his side regardless, trusting him when he found a lead etc. I feel like the duo worked well, Tapp was determined and Sing stayed level headed, they worked well together from what we saw and Sing isn't talked about enough. Sings death genuinely impacted and tore up Tapp to the point of instanity (Lawrence Gordon says the reason he was discharged was right after Sing died so thats when the fall to insanity started). Ken Leung in the short time he played the role did a good job and you can't tell me otherwise. The clear dynamics of Tapp and Sings character and seeing how they were different but ended up being great partners is 👌.

As much as I love Adam, Lawrence, Amanda & John (and how the actors were incredible in the movie), they already get quite a lot of appreciation from the fandom. I seriously believe these were the most underrated characters from the first movie that deserve more appreciation. This is more of a ramble than anything. I didn't include Mark or Paul or Kerry because they aren't really in it long enough. Kerry is more involved later on.

This was just rambling more about characters who I believe were underrated, I think all actors and actress' pulled off a great job and made the movie into something you can see passion behind.

Feel free to add more to this list, even if you want to make your own list for characters that arent restricted to Saw I! Id love to hear more or pointers why you believe a character is underrated or overrated.

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blackdogpanopticon · 6 years

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Music = Life

So when I began to think about what I would like my first post (other than my introduction) to be about, I think the topic quite quickly jumped out at me. Or to use a related term, its caught me like an ear worm. Music for me has always dominated my life, in the best possible way. I personally can't live without it. To get the cliche out of the way, because it needs to be said; music is life. Its in everything we do. Its in the beat of your feet as you walk down the street. Its in the voices of young children who are learning how to form their first words. Its the very context in which my life is set i suppose; or at least a large part of the context.

It goes right back to the parents doesn't it. My dad was and always will be massively into music. And he really knows his stuff in my opinion. From the Ramones to Sandy Denny, Bob Dylan to Nirvana, Led Zep to Bright Eyes (one of the few acts we have seen together, amazing gig, don't get me started! Ha!). Even my mother who has never been massively into music has her favourite artists and things, Adam and the Ants, Van Morrison etc. So that's where it starts doesn't it, they set and create your first influences by showing you their interests and in this way you develop your own. You draw from your friends, acquaintances and enemies alike.

When I was younger my first big musical taste/love/subculture of my own was emo, punk rock, mosh and hardcore. I was an emo kid I will proudly say. I don't care what you think of that, but you should know it about me. And so it went that from a young age I learnt to play drums and always played in bands. I never did any serious gigs, a few here and there. All my bands always fell out even before it got to that point! Ha. But I was a competent drummer and I used to love playing, practising and jamming. I spent a lot of time on it and it was a big part of my childhood. But we shall come back to this topic in a future article I am certain.

For now I want to try to talk about the influence of music on issues of mental health and vice versa. As you know, music and mental health have a massive interlink, an intersection, an intrinsic bond. I will always remember my dad showing me Nirvana (my little bro got them before I did to give him credit actually, props). And then he told me about Kurt (RIP). And I think from that point onward I think I always realised that music was more than just a something, its a higher power essentially I think.

And it got me thinking about the tunes from my past that instantly make me think about the bond between music and mental health. The first one that jumped right out at me was “Med’s by Placebo”. Now if you know this song the chorus is very blatant almost blunt and its clear to me its probably about schizophrenia, psychosis or bipolar etc. But in it are some beautiful poises, for instance: “I was confused by the powers that be, forgetting names and faces, passers by were looking at me, as if they could erase it”. Now I didn’t realise, but our Brian Moloko has suffered from depression himself, and he does work to try and help break the stigma around the issue. I mean the song itself does that, but he also does other stuff http://www.nme.com/news/music/placebos-brian-molko-need-break-stigma-around-discussing-mental-health-2146515.

“Numb” by Linkin Park is another one. I obviously never realised when I was a child because I never really used to think about anything because i used to be daft! But its so blatantly obviously an ode to himself about the person depression has forced him to become, Chester Bennington (RIP) that is. An it goes; “I've become so numb, I can't feel you there, become so tired, so much more aware by becoming this all I want to do, is be more like me and be less like you”. Deep. And when I was listening to this the other day I almost shed a tear, I felt a build up of emotion inside me. Which is a complete double edge sword. On the one hand it was nice, in fact it was more than nice, to be able to feel the emotion. The emotion that someone who helped shaped me in my younger days felt so numb he had to leave this world. But the fact that Chester is gone, is tragic beyond words. Seriously one of the nicest and most amazing singers ever. Mad love.

Now that I am a bit more grown up and urban (lol!) in my musical taste, I love it when I hear songs that are about mental health issues specifically or loosely. For instance “Lovesick by Mura Masa featuring ASAP Rocky” goes: “Cause I'm sipping Pro, yeah, that meth is pro, Promethazine, yeah, a stepping stone. Oh, they acting up? Get your weapon drawn. They only killing time, another second gone. I heard your man ain't home, now you melatone. But you acting young and you hella grown”. And whilst this song is clearly about his love life (it was originally about his [ASAP Rocky’s] sex life according to Mura Masa https://www.highsnobiety.com/2016/09/30/asap-rocky-mura-masa-lovesick/), it is also clearly about the impact that his love life (or its demise) had on his ability to sleep and therefore his mental well being. The lyrics are actually very clever and subtle to be fair; they say that a love life is clearly something to be desired (i mean who doesn’t want to share their life with some one else?) but that it can also have negative ramifications.

Stepping towards current (ish! gimme a chance I am currently in the process of updating my music library after my latest wrestle with the black dog!) and more direct songs about mental health we have “Voices by Disclosure featuring Sasha Keable”. I can’t seem to find any information on this one but even if you haven’t heard it (I think you would have been living under a rock or something) its very clear what it is about. I like this one though because it actually names and shames some of the issues that you might experience when you are suffering, for instance: “You bring out the darkest side of me, chased up from a place that I can't reach, I would love to practice what I preach, you bring out the good girl side of me”. Its that whole thing of wanting to be able to do something or change something but you can’t because you are ill.

And I think for me that’s the crux of this article. When you are ill, your life is taken away from you, you loose control of it and you can’t do anything or engage with anything. For me, when I am ill, I stop wanting to listen to music. And that is tragic in my opinion. Because, as I say, music is life. So its indicative and highly illustrative of the main problem that depression causes. Man, I listen to the radio, such as BBC Radio 4 (because I am super middle class ja) instead but I think that is mainly to block out the silence and try block my negative thoughts. I’ve never really questioned why I don’t want to listen to music when I am unwell but now that I have thought about it, I think on a subconscious (controversial word!) level its to do with the fact that music reminds me of when my life was going well. Music is the sound track to every good moment I have had in my life, its the events around which the seminal moments of my life has revolved around (gigs, festivals etc) and it makes you happier when you are happy. But for me, it doesn’t make me better when I am unwell, it just makes me more numb. Which as I say, is tragic and forces me to push it away.

So, on a final note, now that my life is back to where I want it to be, now that I actually have control, I have been rinsing the tunes so to speak. My Spotify Prime (if you don’t have it are you actually a person? lol I joke) library has grown exponentially in the last few months from a piddly few artists to a vast and diverse plethora of current music which I can use to frame and shape the coming moments in my life. I love being into music, they say that the people that show you new music in your life are the important ones. And its so true. That’s why I am a total music fiend and I love being up to date with whats going on the world of music. From Rudimental to Kendrizzy Lemar, from DJ Seinfeld to Four Tet, from Grimes to Aluna George. The more you educate yourself the happier you can make yourself and the people around you! You can meet some amazing people through music as well (idea for an article maybe?! ha lol), it brings people together man. Which is why I have got so many gigs lined up in the coming months. Now when I see a gig I am interested in I try and buy the tickets straight away so I don’t miss out. I get bad FOMO! Coming up gigs wise I have got Knower, Charlie Parr, Lets Eat Grandma and Mansion of Snakes. I am excited about all of these gigs. I am excited to create new moments in my life, I am excited to experience new things, but above all; I am excited to be in control of my life and the things that are entering my ear drums! =)

And its great to be able to say that.

#mentalhealth #mentalhealthandmusic #music

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lyndsey-parker · 6 years

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Exclusive photos: Ranking ‘The Voice’ Season 13's top 20

The Voice Season 13’s top 20 semifinalists were revealed this Tuesday, and Reality Rocks has their exclusive cast photos… and, of course, some opinions as well. Check out this definitive ranking of the contestants, so you can make an informed vote next week!

Chloe Kohanski (Team Blake)

Chloe is this year’s Jeffery Austin: a sleeper contestant absolutely no one saw coming (who was even montaged in the Battles), until she showed up at the Knockout Rounds in a snazzy suit and slayyyyed. Her gorgeous, goosebump-inducing Knockout cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landside” was the standout performance of Season 13 — and the season’s highest iTunes charter so far, peaking at No. 12. Shockingly, Chloe’s doppelganger and original coach, Miley Cyrus, gave her up, but Miley’s loss is definitely Blake Shelton’s gain. Blake could pull off a six-peat win with this exquisite young songstress. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Davon Fleming (Team J.Hud)

Jennifer Hudson will probably land an endorsement deal with Zappos before Season 13 is over — because as long as she has fellow Whitney Houston fan Davon (and his nearly Whitney-level vocals) on her side, she’s sure to be throwing designer shoes left and right. This charismatic entertainer is a force to be reckoned with, the real deal, and the total package. Jennifer, a former Voice U.K. coach, may soon be bragging about winning The Voice on both sides of the pond. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Addison Agen (Team Adam)

While there is a risk that Addison and Chloe, both indie-leaning songbirds, will cancel each other out in the Playoffs, I feel there is room for both in the Season 13 finale. With a natural “melody in her voice” (according to J.Hud, in one of the most astute comments of the season), Addison has also experienced early iTunes success, with her “Beneath Your Beautiful” hitting No. 38 and her Battle Rounds duet of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” going to No. 36. Interestingly, Addison is another Team Miley castoff; Miley apparently came in like a wrecking ball and wrecked her chances of winning this season, by getting rid of two of her star players! (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Noah Mac (Team J.Hud)

He’s got Harry Styles hair — and Harry Styles charisma. But did Harry Styles ever make Kelly Clarkson cry? Becaus that’s just what Noah did with his soulful Knockout performance of James Bay’s “Hold Back the River.” I’ll be crying a river myself if this talented kid doesn’t at least make it to the top six. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Janice Freeman (Team J.Hud)

A rock ‘n’ soul powerhouse channeling Mary J. Blige and Tina Turner, a cancer survior, and a mother, Janice is a true fighter. She pours every ounce of her pain and passion into go-for-broken, gauntlet-throwing performances like “I’m Goin’ Down” and “Radioactive,” and it’s always good TV. I would love to see Janice differentiate herself in the Playoffs with more leftfield alt-rock choices, a la her Imagine Dragons cover; if she does that, there’s no way she’s goin’ down any time soon. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Moriah Formica (Team Miley)

Moriah is, as Blake might say, BAD. ASS. And she’s as tough as her surname implies. A guitar-slinging 16-year-old raised on ’80s hair metal (she even once guested on a solo album by Stryper singer Michael Sweet!), Moriah nailed every note of Heart’s “Crazy on You” in her Blind Audition. Granted, she sounded a lot like Heart’s Ann Wilson, but in her Knockout performance, she started to find her own voice with a fierce take on a contemporary Kelly Clarkson classic. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Chris Weaver (Team J.Hud)

Chris is a worship leader by day and a drag queen (Nedra Belle, the drag daughter of RuPaul’s Drag Race veteran Sasha Belle) by night. Can I get an amen, literally? With a pedigree like that, Chris makes for good TV, but he also has vocal chops — no lip-syncing for this guy! However, with dual backgrounds in church and NYC drag clubs, Chris’s performance style is, shall we say, far from subtle. He’ll have to work on his oversinging tendencies, which could alienate viewers — otherwise he might sashay away from the competition way too soon. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Brooke Simpson (Team Miley)

During a mentoring session, Kelly Clarkson said, “Not only does Brooke have what it takes to be in the industry, I think the industry needs people like her. She’s so lovable on top of being an amazing vocalist.” High praise from one America’s sweetheart to another! Brooke might fade into the background as she goes up against some of this season’s flashier personalities, but like Kelly on American Idol Season 1, she has chops and charm. Don’t underestmate her. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Ashland Craft (Team Miley)

Miley is determined to win with a country contestant this season, which would bring her career’s Joanne-reminiscent, return-to-roots story arc to its logical conclusion. With fellow sassy rebel girl Ashland, Miley may get her wish. Ashland has enough Gretchen Wilsonesque sass to please diehard country fans, plus the rock ‘n’ roll edge (note her Skynyrd-style cover of Bon Jovi’s road-weary “Wanted Dead or Alive”) to cross over. I’m interested to see if she can pull off a ballad, however — at some point, America will yearn to connect with kinder, gentler Ashland underneath all that leather. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Keisha Renee (Team Blake)

The onetime Adam Lambert/Nicki Minaj backup singer-turned-country contender occupies a lane all her own, and she’s certainly interesting and unique. But will country fans, and Blake Shelton fans, embrace her? I’m concerned they’ll cast their votes for the more traditional, conservative country contestants… like Adam Cunningham. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Adam Pearce (Team Miley)

Adam has a fantastic, ferocious rock voice, but the Led Zep cover band frontman has some corny onstage habits he needs to kick — like his tendecy to prowl the stage in endless, nervous circles, not to mention all that excessive hairography. However, every Voice season needs a longhaired rocker dude, and Adam P. is the only longhaired rocker dude of Season 13. I think if Miley, a rock chick herself with impeccable taste, gives him some newer tunes that prove he’s more than just a Foreigner/Deep Purple karaoke type, he could stick around a while. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Hannah Mrozak (Team J.Hud)

Hannah is a classic Clarkson-style pop/soul balladeer, and though she has faded into the background for much of this season, her Knockout Rounds performance of Rihanna’s “Love on the Brain,” which resulted in the final dramatic Steal of Season 13, established her as a strong contender — and Brooke Simpson’s stiffest competition this season. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Adam Cunningham (Team Adam)

Like Miley, Adam Levine is determined to win with a country contestant (and rub it in his longtime rival Blake’s face, of course). Adam almost achieved this goal in Season 11, when his bro-country contender Josh Gallagher placed fourth and country-crossover pop singer Billy Gilman was runner-up, but maybe his dastardly dream will come true with this guy. While Adam the C’s earlier performances were generic meat-‘n’-potatoes country, his gruff Lee Ann Womack/Chris Stapleton remake in the Knockouts was a revelation. If Adam the L continues to push Adam the C down that singer-songwriter lane, that lane just might lead to the finale. (Making the victory even more sweet would be the fact that Cunningham was originally a member of Team Blake.) Song choice will be key here. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Shi’Ann Jones (Team J.Hud)

Shi’Ann, at age 15, is the youngest semifinalist in the top 20 — a fun fact that will surely be trotted out at every opportunity this season. (“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU ARE ONLY 15!!!”) Obviously Shi’Ann’s inexperience may hinder her, and the novelty of her youth will only get her so far; from this point onward, she must be graded on the same curve as everyone else, even 40-year-olds Red Marlow and Esera Tuaolo. But Jennifer Hudson sees a younger mini-me version of herself in Shi’Ann, and is therefore likely to give this girl special guidance — so Shi’Ann could be this year’s Wé McDonald or Jacqui Lee. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Emily Luther (Team Adam)

There’s no doubt that this theater-trained, Berklee-schooled jazz chanteuse is one of Season 13’s most techincally skilled vocalists. But even her own coach Adam said she’s “almost too perfect.” She lacks charisma and doesn’t pop onscreen like some of her opponents, and she seems much older than her 24 years. It’s easy to see why her former YouTube duet partner Charlie Puth’s career soared, while hers has stalled. I think Emily could have a bright future on Broadway, but sadly, I don’t know how far she can go on this show. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Red Marlow (Team Blake)

This dyed-in-the-flannel everyman could not be more obvious Team Blake material if he’d showed up wearing an “Ol’ Red”-era mullet and drinking a Starbucks cup filled with whiskey. A “country as cornbread” (or “country as a wheelbarrow full of turnip greens”) dude who rattles off one-liners like “I’m as excited as a fat kid at a candy store,” he sure has a big, made-for-TV personality, and Middle America will love the lug. Until this week, I’ve found his performances to be typical weeknight bar-band fare andand corny as cornbread, so I’d rather Middle America’s country votes go to Ashland Craft or Adam Cunningham — but Red’s “Outskirts of Heaven” Knockout performance proved that he has a softer side and doesn’t always have to be the Season 13 class clown. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Mitchell Lee (Team Blake)

Mitchell has the cougar-baiting, hunky good looks to make America’s housewives swoon, and with his excellent pitch, he’s easy on the ears as well as the eyes. He’s already shaping up to be the Barrett Baber of Season 13. However, there’s a Ken-doll slickness, forced smiley-ness, and smugness to his performances that I find offputting, and he plays it safe with his song choices. I’d love to see more grit and gravitas from Mitchell, so he can become the Brendan Fletcher of Season 13 instead. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Anthony Alexander (Team Adam)

Young Anthony has teen-heartthrob appeal and tons of potential, but even his coach Adam admits that he’s “not fully cooked yet.” With only four weeks of Playoffs, will Anthony have the time to “cook” and catch up with his more, um, seasoned opponents? I am not so sure. Anthony has talent, but he may have been better off waiting to try out for Season 14. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Jon Mero (Team Adam)

Jon’s confidence can sometimes come across as cockiness, and the professional corporate gig singer’s performances (“Blame It on the Boogie”? really??) don’t feel modern or relevant. It doesn’t bode well for his chances that his Knockout Round performance was montaged — a rarity on this series — and not even uploaded by NBC to YouTube. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

Esera Tuaolo (Team Blake)

As an openly gay former NFL player, Esera has by far this season’s most fascinating (and timely) backstory. Does he have the pipes to back that up, though? I sense that he’s made it this far mainly because he makes for compelling television. It’s unlikely that there’s a Voice touchdown in his future. (Photo: NBC)

Source: Yahoo Music

#slideshow #the voice #_uuid:108bf949-198a-3d9e-b72a-315dcbd0422f #reality rocks #photos #_revsp:wp.yahoo.music.us #_lmsid:a0Vd000000AE7lXEAT

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d-llewyn · 7 years

Text

The boy next door

He was cute, dark hair, a Beatles' cut coming down over his brown eyes a bit. And he had a smile that cut through to my heart. Not much younger than I was, except he was summer born and I was winter. We would hang out in my room above the garage, usually after we went swimming.

We'd been neighbors for a number of years, sharing backyards and pools, just two guys. He was in private school and I in a public one. In ninth grade, he joined the wrestling team. I had been taking judo for a few years, so I would practice partner for him. At first, we would just practice various moves, especially ones he saw on TV. Over time things got interesting beyond anything we ever had ever imagined.

Eventually we would start in the pool, chasing each other, so slippery when wet. Then stroll back to my room, maybe playing a little grab ass. Sometimes I would let him win. He was bit shorter, but stockier than I, so we were evenly matched. He was a bit stronger and would take advantage of his slightly lower center of gravity. But I was wily, wiry and wriggly, especially when wet!

At some point, after ages of serially sharing the shower, we discovered that naked was infinitely more fun. Parallel bodies. After the first time we tried it, it was de rigour. The feel of our bodies sliding together always made us so very aware of our mutual manhood, our shared pleasure points.

At first we were always in a rush. Over those first few years we learned to slow down, to drag out the pleasure to fill the time allowed. Sometimes we would lose ourselves in an entire weekend if both sets of parents were away.

We were grabby, horny teenagers. You know the type, insatiable. We touched and explored each other any, I repeat any time we were alone. Once, when our parents had dinner together at his home, we each had a hand in the others pants, albeit discreetly, at various points during the evening. I believe it was an underwear optional evening.

We were both circumcised. He was beautiful and would come to full attention at the touch of my fingers. Sometimes I would just put my hand on his thigh and he would harden so quickly in his tight jeans that he would yelp in discomfort as there was no room to expand! We were at it as often as we could manage. He was a little shorter down there, about a half inch, than I was. His testicles much tighter and drawn up than mine. And surrounded by a a lovely crown of dark shiny pubic hair that was soft, curly and tangled as my fingers explored the base of his phallic glory. Slightly thinner at the base, expanding a bit as it came to the crown, the glistening corona, that which I craved above all else.

As you can tell, I was, and still am, a very oral person. The scent of his always Ivory clean white briefs always beckoned. I would lower his jeans and press my face to his crotch and revel in the clean smell of Ivory soap that was ambrosia to me.

There were times he stepped, clean and scrubbed from the shower, a mini-god in my hands as I gently dried him off and attended to his manhood. We tended to think of ourselves as hedonistic Romans or Greeks. And we knew about the the naughty bits of Greco-Roman history. That made it so much fun! Long before NatLampCo's Animal House came out we had fun with togas.

I remember well the day I saw him in the shower playing with himself. I had stopped to pick up so chips and soda from the main house. Even with the creaky stairs of the ancient garage apt he didn't see me enter and take in the water dripping off his sweet tan skin, running off those lightly fitted orbs. I ran, sliding on the tile as I went to my knees before him, inhaling his cock as I tickled his balls and teased his tender taint. I gently grazed the clean wrinkled arse. It pulsed as I traced a delicate finger tip around it.

It was a supremely intense happening.

As mentioned, he was in a private school, Catholic, and I in a public one. This was fantastic. We could each have our separate, public, more sexually "normal" lives, at least for the 60s. Our school buddies never had to know.

Now we were just two guys that had sex together. It was good clean, if often sticky, fun. Neither of us really thought about the implications. There a book the parents library, a psychology text, that explained that what we were doing was normal for boys our age. Exploration was natural.

Then one day, the world changed.

We liked to camp. I was damned good at low weight, high comfort bedding. I like my comfort, but I don't like to lug too much around. Extensive Boy Scout experience.

It was one fine Spring morning as we camped under a blooming dogwood tree. White petals were strewn around us on a soft bed of pin needles. The scene would have made a beautiful painting or picture, had I a decent camera. The tall pines swayed gently around us as the morning sun danced and peeped between them. It was so very quiet except for the rustle of the trees in the gentle morning wind. Glorious and sensual privacy, yet exposed to the world.

My god I loved my dear friend and bedroom adventurer! And sex with him was always more passionate and sweaty than it was with my girlfriend. She was good, but someone the same sex always had a better clue as to what turned you and them on. And a hard phallus was always so damn obvious in its desire to cum.

Anyway, I woke this absolutely beautiful morning and gazed over at my friend. We slept under a simple tarp, a lean-to, but open on all sides, exposed in slumber, except t-shirts and sleeping boxers. I had woken his my usual teenage morning boner. (CisGuys will understand this!) He lay, sleeping on his bedroom, his blanket mostly tossed off during the night. He so obviouly was erect, his shorts tentpoled. After a few moments of quiet appreciation and rather horny thoughts, I got up and crossed to his bedroll. I gazed down and reached out, tracing butterfly touches about his manhood. He twitched a bit and, dare I imagine, smiled! I took this as a sign to dip down and kiss it. I had done this a thousand times before, but this was different. He was, in this moment, the most lovely and desirable person on the planet.

I realized that sex with him was right and normal in my life. And then I promptly deep throated him for the very first time without trace of discomfort while comfortably breathing through my nose as I worked my lover's sweet business.

Even if I could not let most of the kids a school know, I enjoyed sex with both sexes rather equally, although each supplied unique pleasures to relish and sometimes wallow in. And I knew then that I always would love a good man and his cock.

Now, here's the part some people find surprising. Even though I started my sexual explorations and dalliances in early junior high, 7th grade, I remained a virgin with men and women till I was 21. This was not for lack of desire or trying.

Part of my issue was that I am and always have been very adamant about consent. There was also my style. I was polite, yet obviously interested and girls liked that. I just played hard to get. From the first, I never touched unless invited.

For example, the first time I ever played a hand on that other most glorious creation, the breast, I was sitting under a tree in a park on a pleasant day. Peggy lay with her head on my thigh, my hand on her stomach making light, lazy circles on her stomach.

At some point she looked up, a look of pleased exasperation on her face, a smile in her eyes, mischief a making. She reached down and took my hand in hers, squeezed, gazing into my eyes, a sense of secure satisfaction in her visage. Then she lay it upon her breast.

First impression, soft! I suppose I should mention that she was, ahem, 34DD and soft like pillows of finest down. And this in spite of the fact that I prefer smaller B cups. I was quite pleased with myself. She was rather pleased with my seeming natural talent for playing with her nipples with what was to get the proper amount of gentleness and roughness. She didn't have to know I developed the skill with my buddy and his cute brown little nubbins.

Yes,I have a talent for the art of gentle, barely restained and appreciative eagerness that anyone, regardless of sex, gender or interest, who was capable of sexual arousal sorely appreciated.

Now you may rightly get the impression I was politely and discretely brazen. Indeed I was. However, parents, for the most part, liked me and, gasp, trusted me, more or less. It was to my benefit that I was (usually) a well dressed long-hair. (Preferred classical, but Led Zep and Zappa had their place amongst my interests.) I was unfailing polite without pandering. I would take a date to a play, get ourselves off on the way home, then discuss the play, say Brecht's Galileo, with a parent. They would mostly ignore the fact that we had missed curfew a bit.

Dressing up or down was both natural and schooled. I could pull off pink, single needle shirts, with French cuffs, and arty, modern cufflinks to match at school without being thought of as different. I also had a penchant for old saddle Oxfords with red rubber soles. Classy looking, yet good on the court.

I learned early in life that the manners my grandmothers taught worked with almost everyone, no matter the situation, or desire. Always polite and at the ready to hold the door for friends and especially the sweet young things, irrespective of gender or sex. I was a gentlemanly, exceedingly polite collection of intellectual interests and animal desires.

(Not quite finished yet. This is relatively unedited, so far. Will be breaking it down as I go. A sort of autobiography, slightly fictionalized for a variety reasons, that will probably morph, expand and sprawl, much as any living thing might, then divide into more discrete and coherent chunks. Enjoy.)

#gay #bisexual #desire #longing #autobiography #memoir #awakenings #exploration

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ricardosousalemos · 7 years

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Massive Attack: Mezzanine

“Trip-hop” eventually became a ’90s punchline, a music-press shorthand for “overhyped hotel lounge music.” But today, the much-maligned subgenre almost feels secret precedent. Listen to any of the canonical Bristol-scene albums of the mid-late ’90s, when the genre was starting to chafe against its boundaries, and you’d think the claustrophobic, anxious 21st century started a few years ahead of schedule. Looked at from the right angle, trip-hop is part of an unbroken chain that runs from the abrasion of ’80s post-punk to the ruminative pop-R&B-dance fusion of the moment.

The best of it has aged far more gracefully (and forcefully) than anything recorded in the waning days of the record industry’s pre-filesharing monomania has any right to. Tricky rebelled against being attached at the hip to a scene he was already looking to shed and decamped for Jamaica to record a more aggressive, bristling-energy mutation of his style in ’96; the name Pre-Millennium Tension is the only obvious thing that tells you it’s two decades old rather than two weeks. And Portishead’s ’97 self-titled saw the stress-fractured voice of Beth Gibbons envisioning romance as codependent, mutually assured destruction while Geoff Barrow sunk into his RZA-noir beats like The Conversation’s Gene Hackman ruminating over his surveillance tapes. This was raw-nerved music, too single-minded and intense to carry an obvious timestamp.

But Massive Attack were the origin point of the trip-hop movement they and their peers were striving to escape the orbit of, and they nearly tore themselves to shreds in the process. Instead— or maybe as a result—they laid down their going-nova genre's definitive paranoia statement with Mezzanine. The band's third album (not counting the Mad Professor-remixed No Protection) completes the last in a sort of de facto Bristol trilogy, where Tricky’s youthful iconoclasm and Portishead’s deep-focus emotional intensity set the scene for Massive Attack’s sense of near-suffocating dread. The album corroded their tendencies to make big-wheel hymnals of interconnected lives where hope and despair trade precedent—on Mezzanine, it’s alienation all the way down. There’s no safety from harm here, nothing you’ve got to be thankful for, nobody to take the force of the blow: what Mezzanine provides instead is a succession of parties and relationships and panopticons where the walls won’t stop closing in.

The lyrics establish this atmosphere all on their own. Sex, in “Inertia Creeps,” is reduced to a meeting of “two undernourished egos, four rotating hips,” the focus of a failing relationship that's left its participants too numbed with their own routine dishonesty to break it off. The voice singing it—Massive Attack's cornerstone co-writer/producer Robert “3D” Del Naja—is raspy from exhaustion. “Dissolved Girl” reiterates this theme from the perspective of guest vocalist Sarah Jay Hawley (“Passion’s overrated anyway”). On “Risingson,” Grant “Daddy G” Marshall nails the boredom and anxiety of being stuck somewhere you can’t stand with someone you’re starting to feel the same way about (“Why you want to take me to this party and breathe/I’m dying to leave/Every time we grind you know we severed lines”).

But Mezzanine’s defining moments come from guest vocalists who were famous long before Massive Attack even released their first album. Horace Andy was already a legend in reggae circles, but his collaborations with Massive Attack gave him a wider crossover exposure, and all three of his appearances on Mezzanine are homages or nods to songs he'd charted with in his early-’70s come-up. “Angel” is a loose rewrite of his 1973 single “You Are My Angel,” but it’s a fakeout after the first verse—originally a vision of beauty (“Come from way above/To bring me love”), transformed into an Old Testament avenger: “On the dark side/Neutralize every man in sight.” The parenthetically titled, album-closing reprise of “(Exchange)” is a ghostly invocation of Andy’s “See A Man's Face” cleverly disguised as a comedown track. And then there’s “Man Next Door,” the John Holt standard that Andy had previously recorded as “Quiet Place”—on Mezzanine, it sounds less like an overheard argument from the next apartment over and more like a close-quarters reckoning with violence heard through thin walls ready to break. It’s Andy at his emotionally nuanced and evocative best.

The other outside vocalist was even more of a coup: Liz Fraser, the singer and songwriter of Cocteau Twins, lends her virtuoso soprano to three songs that feel like exorcisms of the personal strife accompanying her band’s breakup. Her voice serves as an ethereal counterpoint to speaker-rattling production around it. “Black Milk” contains the album’s most spiritually unnerving words (“Eat me/In the space/Within my heart/Love you for God/Love you for the Mother”), even as her lead and the elegiac beat make for some of its most beautiful sounds. She provides the wistful counterpoint to the night-shift alienation of “Group Four.” And then there's “Teardrop,” her finest moment on the album. Legend has it the song was briefly considered for Madonna; Andrew “Mushroom” Vowles sent the demo to her, but was overruled by Daddy G and 3D, who both wanted Fraser. Democracy thankfully worked this time around, as Fraser’s performance—recorded in part on the day she discovered that Jeff Buckley, who she’d had an estranged working relationship and friendship with, had drowned in Memphis’ Wolf River—was a heart-rending performance that gave Massive Attack their first (and so far only) UK Top 10 hit.

Originally set for a late ’97 release, Mezzanine got pushed back four months because Del Naja refused to stop reworking the tracks, tearing them apart and rebuilding them until they’re so polished they gleam. It sure sounds like the product of bloody-knuckled labor, all that empty-space reverb and melted-together multitrack vocals and oppressive low-end. (The first sound you hear on the album, that lead-jointed bassline on “Angel,” is to subwoofers what “Planet Earth” is to high-def television.) But it also groans with the burden of creative conflict, a working process that created rifts between Del Naja and Vowles, who left shortly after Mezzanine dropped following nearly 15 years of collaboration.

Mezzanine began the band’s relationship with producer Neil Davidge, who’d known Vowles dating back to the early ’90s and met the rest of the band after the completion of Protection. He picked a chaotic time to jump in, but Davidge and 3D forged a creative bond working through that pressure. Mezzanine was a document of unity, not fragmentation. Despite their rifts, they were a post-genre outfit, one that couldn’t separate dub from punk from hip-hop from R&B because the basslines all worked together and because classifications are for toe tags. All their acknowledged samples—including the joy-buzzer synths from Ultravox’s “Rockwrok” (“Inertia Creeps”), the opulent ache of Isaac Hayes’ celestial-soul take on “Our Day Will Come” (“Exchange”), Robert Smith’s nervous “tick tick tick” from the Cure’s “10:15 Saturday Night,” and the most concrete-crumbling throwdown of the Led Zep “Levee” break ever deployed (the latter two on “Man Next Door”)—were sourced from 1968 and 1978, well-traveled crate-digging territory. But what they build from that is its own beast.

Their working method never got any faster. The four-year gap between Protection and Mezzanine became a five-year gap until 2003’s 100th Window, then another seven years between that record and 2010’s Heligoland, plus another seven years and counting with no full-lengths to show for it. Not that they've been slacking: we've gotten a multimedia film/music collaboration with Adam Curtis, the respectable but underrated Ritual Spirit EP, and Del Naja’s notoriously rumored side gig as Banksy. (Hey, 3D does have a background in graffiti art.) But the ordeal of both recording and touring Mezzanine took its own toll. A late ’98 interview with Del Naja saw him optimistic about its reputation-shedding style: “I always said it was for the greater good of the fucking project because if this album was a bit different from the last two, the next one would be even freer to be whatever it wants to be.” But fatigue and restlessness rarely make for a productive mixture, and that same spark of tension which carried Mezzanine over the threshold proved unsustainable, not just for Massive Attack’s creativity but their continued existence.

Still, it’s hard not to feel the album’s legacy resonating elsewhere—and not just in “Teardrop” becoming the cue for millions of TV viewers to brace themselves for Hugh Laurie’s cranky-genius-doctor schtick. Graft its tense feelings of nervy isolation and late-night melancholy onto two-step, and you’re partway to the blueprint for Plastician and Burial. You can hear flashes of that mournful romantic alienation in James Blake, the graceful, bass-riddled emotional abrasion in FKA twigs, the all-absorbing post-genre rock/soul ambitions in Young Fathers or Algiers. Mezzanine stands as an album built around echoes of the ’70s, wrestled through the immediacy of its creators' tumultuous late ’90s, and fearless enough that it still sounds like it belongs in whatever timeframe you're playing it.

#reviews-albums

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