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APPLICATION
PLAYER
↠ Name: Mel
↠ Age: Way over 18
↠ Characters Played: Cyril Lavellan, Harry Potter.
CHARACTER
↠ Name: Blaine Anderson
↠ Canon: Glee, but this character is extremely AU
↠ Journal: offnote - previously my journal for him was mediumdrip but in an effort to separate this AU from canon!Blaine I made a new journal.
↠ Canon Point: Blaine is from several years after the end of Glee, but extremely canon divergent. After his return to Ohio he remembered the events that took place in the City of Sin and therefore responded to being home far differently than a canon compliant Blaine would. Blaine returned at the end of Season 4 of Glee and everything from that point on has changed.
↠ Reserve: http://sinfulmods.dreamwidth.org/2145.html?thread=314209#cmt314209
↠ Age: 28
↠ Appearance: Blaine is a 5'8" man with curly black hair and hazel eyes. He is fit and has dark hair along his arms, chest, and stomach. When he was younger he used to wear a lot of gel in his hair in an effort to tame it, but in his more mature age he has started to let it go and do its own thing - mostly because he doesn't care to spend the time needed to change it. People who knew Blaine from before will notice that he's more muted in a lot of ways. He doesn't tend to be as expressive as he once was and doesn't wear the same flashy, colorful materials he once did. He might still have a bow tie here and there but it will likely be for a special occasion, not as an every day fashion statement.
Two pictures of what he looks like now:
http://i.perezhilton.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/darren-criss-shirtless-happy-birthday-8__oPt.jpg
http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/35000000/Darren-darren-criss-35070804-1280-1920.jpg
↠ Reference/History: Blaine Anderson on the Glee wiki: http://glee.wikia.com/wiki/Blaine_Anderson
This is a Blaine to remembers everything he experienced in City of Sin and Bete Noire.
Here are his tags on the BN network community: http://betenoire-rp.dreamwidth.org/tag/blaine+anderson
Here are his tags on the BN logs community: https://betenoire-logs.dreamwidth.org/tag/blaine+anderson
Here are his tags on the CoS network community: https://cityofsin.dreamwidth.org/tag/%7B+blaine+anderson
Here are his tags on the CoS logs community: http://cityofsin-logs.dreamwidth.org/tag/%7B+blaine+anderson
Important key notes about what happened to Blaine in those games (It's important to note that I'm not putting in everything that happened because it's been years for Blaine and the memories will be hazy in the sense that he's grown up and they happened a long time ago. He would have key impressions of some of the stuff that happened though - you don't tend to forget torture or finding your lover's body):
He fell in love with David Posner. They lived together and were basically a married couple - until David returned an older man and put a wrench into all of that. I would link you to a specific posts but guys for real, they were all over both games being super cute and super angsty all of the time.
He started with a rocky relationship with Draco Malfoy, but eventually the pair made up and became BFFs (who hooked up a few times). And let's be real they have too many posts to link too.
When he first arrived in BN he briefly lived with Diana Able and considered her a good friend, even despite the time that Diana was possessed and tortured him. Torture scene here: https://betenoire-logs.dreamwidth.org/818499.html?thread=57572931#cmt57572931
He had a respectful relationship with Erik, whom always took care of David and had good enough impressions of him as someone who also cared for David. Oh man they were always fun to write.
Super upsetting thing that happened: David's fight with depression eventually had David commit suicide, Erik and Blaine were the ones to find his body. Erik mostly protected him from the worst of it. Discovery scene here: https://betenoire-logs.dreamwidth.org/849968.html
Blaine totally worked for a vampire that one time and was manipulated by him. He befriended mages, wizards, and Greek mythological characters and creatures. He came to think of this place as his home and dreaded the day he would return to Ohio - And then his mun lost all interest in Glee and dropped him and it was troubling for everyone involved!
POINT OF CANON DIVERGENCE:
Blaine returned to Ohio at the end of Season 4. During that time he was working to get Kurt back - after cheating on him and getting dumped - and had plans to eventually marry him. (Yeah, teenage!Blaine logic was not the best. Usually you try to get back with someone BEFORE you plan for wedding bells) It is after this point in canon, during the episode "All or Nothing," that everything changes for him.
Basically, he wakes up one day and his memories of the City of Sin aren't an odd, hazy dream-like thing. They are clear and impossible to ignore. He's certain that they are real and that they really happened. This completely taints pretty much everything. Instead of planning and rather cheesy and semi-public marriage proposal to Kurt set to "All You Need Is Love", Blaine draws himself away from Kurt and abandons the idea of getting back together. He remembers a conversation that he and David had once, in which David expressed the belief that Blaine would not choose him over Kurt and remarkably made the choice to choose David - despite having no idea if he would ever see David again. It hurt because he loved and felt devoted to Kurt too but everything was too confusing and painful to continue with that relationship.
He started to immediately fail at everything else in his life too. He stopped caring about school, for example, and didn't feel motivated to apply to college and slacked off on any competitions. He fell into a deep depression which made him feel disconnected from everyone and everything. Eventually, Kurt confronted him and got him to talk but when he explained things he realized just how crazy he sounded. Kurt urged him to seek medical help and eventually Blaine met the first of many, many therapists.
Blaine was diagnosed with a dissociative disorder and prompted to start treatment. Medication was always a terrible idea for him because he always had the worst reactions to them. He also started to oppose talk therapy because it was impossible to open up about what he had experienced. Instead, he closed himself off and tried to take life one day at a time. The problem was that the most closed off he got, the more removed from reality he felt. Eventually, it got to the point where he was having problems believing he was real. He began to suffer from actual dissociative episodes in which he was sure that his body was stuck between realities instead of rooted in reality. Eventually he felt driven to give into the desire to end everything, thinking that would at least stop things but he was found by his mother before the attempt could succeed.
That lead to his longest stay in a hospital and sedatives being prescribed to him because he didn't respond to any other types of medication. It was the only thing that his doctor found would calm him and get him through the day. His treatment is considered unorthodox, but successful because he never attempted to take his life again and managed to begin to function.
In truth, Blaine felt really guilty about the suicide attempt, remembering how it had felt when David had done the exact same thing. If anything, his attempt made him more sure that David was real - after all those memories were too strong to be fake, too painful to ignore. He focused on becoming at least functional in part so that when he left the hospital he was able to convince his family to take a trip to England. During that trip he discovered there was no such place as Culter's Grammar School - it had never existed - and forced to come to terms with the fact that while David might be real, he was not in this reality.
Blaine learned to cope and pretend. He went to therapy but focused on just getting through the day. He took his meds even if they made him feel groggy and disconnected. Eventually, he was able to get a basic office desk job where he transcribes written medical data into a computer filing system. He does well enough because he's able to listen to headphones while he works and he doesn't have to interact with people for the most part.
The only real joy he has in his life is that a local bar has open mic night every Thursday. He's usually there performing, it's the only time he sings in public. When Kurt and his talented, long-term boyfriend Elliott visit they often go with him and support him. Their visits have gotten less and less and Blaine hasn't really been in much contact with Kurt over the last year and a half.
Everyone who knew Blaine before thinks the state of his life now is sad and depressing. He had a lot of promise and probably would have ended up a success in the music industry but what they perceived as intense, acute mental illness got in the way. In reality the memories of experiencing a pocket dimension have left him unable to fully process reality in a healthy way and he tries to get by while also ignoring the lingering sense that nothing is real.
↠ Personality:
As you can probably guess from the summary of his life above, this Blaine is a very different individual from the boy who once lived in the city. Once upon a time, Blaine was a highly emotional and driven young man who truly believed he'd have a music deal and a great big happy gay wedding before he was 25. Once upon a time, he might have ended up with those things too - Glee certainly ends with Blaine married and successful - but this isn't a Blaine who followed the scripted path of his life. Instead, his life was interrupted by a city that took him and made him into someone else entirely.
To start with, while Blaine isn't completely emotionless, his emotions tend to be more muted and under control now. He used to be very expressive and easily let himself get carried away by what he was feeling - something that showed in his performances as well - but now when off the stage he tends to self manage the way that he looks and acts. He got used to his family paying very close attention to his moods - worried that he'd go into a state if they didn't - so he's gotten used to constantly being mindful of what his arms, and face, and body is doing. He sometimes even mentally talks himself through it, having moments where he deliberately walks himself through everything he does. For example, he might be talking to his mom who seems upset and in his mind he'll think: 'I want to comfort my mother, so I need to reach out with my right hand and place it on her shoulder and squeeze lightly' before actually doing it. A lot of his actions seem slower now because of it, as he has to think through them and convince his body to move.
He also tends to play his emotions much closer to the chest now, schooling his face and eyes to protect any hint of what he's feeling. He actually started to do this while in the City with older David and it transferred over to Ohio too. In the city, he did it to hide his feelings about David's aging and his lingering feelings for Kurt. In Ohio he did it with Kurt because he was always so worried about betraying his hidden feelings for David and hurting Kurt. It then transferred to his therapists and doctors, who he wanted to trick into letting him out of hospital.
Blaine still has a real emotional center though, one that he locked up and kept to himself. This means he's still prone to bouts of intense depression and that when he does let go it really shows. The only time he does let go, though, is when he's on stage. This makes his performances highly emotionally fueled, to the point that he's not above crying or screaming on stage when it fits the mood of the piece he's working on.
Music always has been and always will be a life saver for Blaine. It helped him cope with his bullying issues, it brought Kurt into his life, it bound him with people in The City and gave him a way to express himself. Today, it is one of the few really good things he has and one of the things he never wants to let go. It is extremely easy for him to get lost in music and to focus on music entirely. It's one of the few things that he's still extremely passionate about.
The biggest change in Blaine is that he has developed a real distrust of his own perception of reality and copes with a lingering and always presence sense that his life isn't real. He has learned how to cope with this disconnect and manages to function, but there's always a doubt in his mind that this isn't all just an illusion. This break from reality came about because he remembered his experiences in The City and had to cope with the idea that he had experienced basically an entire life in the span of a night. While it had been disorienting to return to The City after going home to be canon updated, returning home and remembering everything completely shifted his understanding of his home reality.
He basically feels like the prisoner in Plato's Allegory of the Cave. He was freed from his dark cave and experienced sunlight and the outside world and now he's back in the cave and unable to fully articulate anything he experienced. It makes the dark shadows in the cave seem empty and meaningless. While he still has connections to the other prisoners chained to the cave - still loves his parents and Cooper, and will always have some kind of lingering feelings for Kurt - he can't get them to understand what he experienced and therefore feels as if he can't fully relate to them anymore.
He once told David that he felt like The City was more his home now than Ohio, and returning to Ohio with all of his memories of The City solidified that in every sense.
↠ Powers / Abilities:
Blaine has no supernatural abilities to speak of. He can, however, sing and play music. His favorite instrument at the moment is his guitar but he can also play the piano and the violin. When focused on a performance he also has a natural charisma and stage presence. The only time the "old" Blaine shows up is when he is performing. He still loves doing so in his heart and soul, he only stopped because his mental health got in the way.
When I mean he has good stage presence, this is a good sample of high school Blaine being a great big giant Ham: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4JS4f5cUDs
And here's Darren Criss because let's be real he's the reason Blaine has that talent and ability and this sort of performance is more in line with what AU!Blaine does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmrFhUEwrKE
↠ Languages: Blaine only speaks English fluently. He knows some words in Spanish and ASL, but only a very small, limited amount.
↠ Inventory:
+ The clothes on his back (black jacket, gray sweater, blue jeans, black snow boots)
+ His wallet (which has his ID, a couple 20 dollar bills, and an assortment of rewards cards)
+ A pair of reading glasses
+ A bottle of his medication
+ A guitar case strapped to his back which has a guitar, a couple guitar picks, and extra guitar string inside
↠ Reason for Playing This Character: I originally was drawn to Blaine for several reasons - not all of them were because he was played by Darren Criss but that was a contributing factor believe me. I adored that he was such a visible representation of a gay youth and that he had a life and exuberance that was fun to play. That said, he was never a perfect character. He had this major flaws including his selfishness and an inability to smoothly handle things when they didn't go exactly the way he wanted. Think: him sabotaging Kurt because Kurt starts to get more popular them him. (Really, he did that. Oh Blaine.) As my relationship with Glee became more fraught with annoyance, I eventually abandoned the character as well, but I also really enjoyed exploring the duality of being both an extremely talented and noticeably flawed person. This AU is that to the extreme. Blaine still has his talent and love of music and performing, but his circumstances have turned him inside out. His return to CoS will be full of internal and external conflict as he has to come to terms with if he thinks this is real and once he does, what that means for him.
↠ Reason for Bringing This Character Back: Because I like hurting myself, apparently. Also David is back and gimme. /grabby hands.
In all seriousness, this Blaine is going to be a very, very different experience to play. He isn't the idealistic yet selfish teen boy he once was. He's deeply wounded by his experiences here and playing that out will be a ton of fun for me.
↠ What is Your Character's Sin?: It used to be Wrath. He used to have issues dealing with a temper that would flair and make him do stupid things. All of that has been sapped from him. Now he lives a life in which he cares more about what he once had and what he left when he was forced back to Ohio. Because of that deep seated sense of longing, his Sin now is Envy, but, ironically what he's envious of most is the old him and what the old him used to have.
SAMPLES
↠ First Person:
[The video turns on with a close up of hands on the strings of a guitar. There's a moment where the person behind it adjusts the angle. When the music starts it's a quiet sort of song that hints to inner turmoil but a cry for connection.]
I feel like a loser.
I feel like I'm lost.
I feel like I'm not sure if I feel anything at all...
[The voice is crisp and practiced but still a candid performance with someone recording himself on the phone. When he's finally done with the song and pulls the recording up and smiles a bit at the screen.]
Original music is a lot more work than covers. Maybe I'll stick to those from now on. Any requests?
[ song credit to Darren Criss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGP4PUgQjJE ]
↠ Third Person:
Open mic night was one of the things that Blaine looked forward to. It gave him some moments to not have to think. He could just be on stage and sing and play and not be weighted down by his own mind. The guitar in his hand was familiar and comfortable. He loved it and felt lulled by it. He cared so much about being well that he practiced throughout the week after work.
Today, though, today for some reasons he could only hold the instrument dumbly and stare down at it. For some reason he kept remembering what it had felt like to play for the network in The City and have his friends respond. There would always be that brief moment of nervousness which would be quickly overpowered by confidence as he played and people responded to it with positive messages.
He feels this ache in his chest which cries out for him to find a way to connect with those people again. People everyone around him keeps insisting aren't real. He hasn't been this overcome by memories in a long time and the desire to go back in time, to be that person again, almost chokes him.
He wishes he had taken more advantage of the time he had had. He wishes he had told Draco how important he was, had insisted that David get over his issues and just be with him. He can't believe how stupid he had been to let pettiness get in the way. More than anything, he wishes he could go back and be that person again, be their Blaine again. He feels longing for what he once had in such an intense way that he isn't sure he'll be able to practice tonight. Hopefully he won't disappoint at the bar.
↠ Playing Sample: Blaine on the TDM: http://cityofsin-ooc.dreamwidth.org/86722.html?thread=2172866#cmt2172866
↠ Additional Samples: N/A
↠ Notes: N/A
PLAYER
↠ Name: Mel
↠ Age: Way over 18
↠ Characters Played: Cyril Lavellan, Harry Potter.
CHARACTER
↠ Name: Blaine Anderson
↠ Canon: Glee, but this character is extremely AU
↠ Journal: offnote - previously my journal for him was mediumdrip but in an effort to separate this AU from canon!Blaine I made a new journal.
↠ Canon Point: Blaine is from several years after the end of Glee, but extremely canon divergent. After his return to Ohio he remembered the events that took place in the City of Sin and therefore responded to being home far differently than a canon compliant Blaine would. Blaine returned at the end of Season 4 of Glee and everything from that point on has changed.
↠ Reserve: http://sinfulmods.dreamwidth.org/2145.html?thread=314209#cmt314209
↠ Age: 28
↠ Appearance: Blaine is a 5'8" man with curly black hair and hazel eyes. He is fit and has dark hair along his arms, chest, and stomach. When he was younger he used to wear a lot of gel in his hair in an effort to tame it, but in his more mature age he has started to let it go and do its own thing - mostly because he doesn't care to spend the time needed to change it. People who knew Blaine from before will notice that he's more muted in a lot of ways. He doesn't tend to be as expressive as he once was and doesn't wear the same flashy, colorful materials he once did. He might still have a bow tie here and there but it will likely be for a special occasion, not as an every day fashion statement.
Two pictures of what he looks like now:
http://i.perezhilton.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/darren-criss-shirtless-happy-birthday-8__oPt.jpg
http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/35000000/Darren-darren-criss-35070804-1280-1920.jpg
↠ Reference/History: Blaine Anderson on the Glee wiki: http://glee.wikia.com/wiki/Blaine_Anderson
This is a Blaine to remembers everything he experienced in City of Sin and Bete Noire.
Here are his tags on the BN network community: http://betenoire-rp.dreamwidth.org/tag/blaine+anderson
Here are his tags on the BN logs community: https://betenoire-logs.dreamwidth.org/tag/blaine+anderson
Here are his tags on the CoS network community: https://cityofsin.dreamwidth.org/tag/%7B+blaine+anderson
Here are his tags on the CoS logs community: http://cityofsin-logs.dreamwidth.org/tag/%7B+blaine+anderson
Important key notes about what happened to Blaine in those games (It's important to note that I'm not putting in everything that happened because it's been years for Blaine and the memories will be hazy in the sense that he's grown up and they happened a long time ago. He would have key impressions of some of the stuff that happened though - you don't tend to forget torture or finding your lover's body):
He fell in love with David Posner. They lived together and were basically a married couple - until David returned an older man and put a wrench into all of that. I would link you to a specific posts but guys for real, they were all over both games being super cute and super angsty all of the time.
He started with a rocky relationship with Draco Malfoy, but eventually the pair made up and became BFFs (who hooked up a few times). And let's be real they have too many posts to link too.
When he first arrived in BN he briefly lived with Diana Able and considered her a good friend, even despite the time that Diana was possessed and tortured him. Torture scene here: https://betenoire-logs.dreamwidth.org/818499.html?thread=57572931#cmt57572931
He had a respectful relationship with Erik, whom always took care of David and had good enough impressions of him as someone who also cared for David. Oh man they were always fun to write.
Super upsetting thing that happened: David's fight with depression eventually had David commit suicide, Erik and Blaine were the ones to find his body. Erik mostly protected him from the worst of it. Discovery scene here: https://betenoire-logs.dreamwidth.org/849968.html
Blaine totally worked for a vampire that one time and was manipulated by him. He befriended mages, wizards, and Greek mythological characters and creatures. He came to think of this place as his home and dreaded the day he would return to Ohio - And then his mun lost all interest in Glee and dropped him and it was troubling for everyone involved!
POINT OF CANON DIVERGENCE:
Blaine returned to Ohio at the end of Season 4. During that time he was working to get Kurt back - after cheating on him and getting dumped - and had plans to eventually marry him. (Yeah, teenage!Blaine logic was not the best. Usually you try to get back with someone BEFORE you plan for wedding bells) It is after this point in canon, during the episode "All or Nothing," that everything changes for him.
Basically, he wakes up one day and his memories of the City of Sin aren't an odd, hazy dream-like thing. They are clear and impossible to ignore. He's certain that they are real and that they really happened. This completely taints pretty much everything. Instead of planning and rather cheesy and semi-public marriage proposal to Kurt set to "All You Need Is Love", Blaine draws himself away from Kurt and abandons the idea of getting back together. He remembers a conversation that he and David had once, in which David expressed the belief that Blaine would not choose him over Kurt and remarkably made the choice to choose David - despite having no idea if he would ever see David again. It hurt because he loved and felt devoted to Kurt too but everything was too confusing and painful to continue with that relationship.
He started to immediately fail at everything else in his life too. He stopped caring about school, for example, and didn't feel motivated to apply to college and slacked off on any competitions. He fell into a deep depression which made him feel disconnected from everyone and everything. Eventually, Kurt confronted him and got him to talk but when he explained things he realized just how crazy he sounded. Kurt urged him to seek medical help and eventually Blaine met the first of many, many therapists.
Blaine was diagnosed with a dissociative disorder and prompted to start treatment. Medication was always a terrible idea for him because he always had the worst reactions to them. He also started to oppose talk therapy because it was impossible to open up about what he had experienced. Instead, he closed himself off and tried to take life one day at a time. The problem was that the most closed off he got, the more removed from reality he felt. Eventually, it got to the point where he was having problems believing he was real. He began to suffer from actual dissociative episodes in which he was sure that his body was stuck between realities instead of rooted in reality. Eventually he felt driven to give into the desire to end everything, thinking that would at least stop things but he was found by his mother before the attempt could succeed.
That lead to his longest stay in a hospital and sedatives being prescribed to him because he didn't respond to any other types of medication. It was the only thing that his doctor found would calm him and get him through the day. His treatment is considered unorthodox, but successful because he never attempted to take his life again and managed to begin to function.
In truth, Blaine felt really guilty about the suicide attempt, remembering how it had felt when David had done the exact same thing. If anything, his attempt made him more sure that David was real - after all those memories were too strong to be fake, too painful to ignore. He focused on becoming at least functional in part so that when he left the hospital he was able to convince his family to take a trip to England. During that trip he discovered there was no such place as Culter's Grammar School - it had never existed - and forced to come to terms with the fact that while David might be real, he was not in this reality.
Blaine learned to cope and pretend. He went to therapy but focused on just getting through the day. He took his meds even if they made him feel groggy and disconnected. Eventually, he was able to get a basic office desk job where he transcribes written medical data into a computer filing system. He does well enough because he's able to listen to headphones while he works and he doesn't have to interact with people for the most part.
The only real joy he has in his life is that a local bar has open mic night every Thursday. He's usually there performing, it's the only time he sings in public. When Kurt and his talented, long-term boyfriend Elliott visit they often go with him and support him. Their visits have gotten less and less and Blaine hasn't really been in much contact with Kurt over the last year and a half.
Everyone who knew Blaine before thinks the state of his life now is sad and depressing. He had a lot of promise and probably would have ended up a success in the music industry but what they perceived as intense, acute mental illness got in the way. In reality the memories of experiencing a pocket dimension have left him unable to fully process reality in a healthy way and he tries to get by while also ignoring the lingering sense that nothing is real.
↠ Personality:
As you can probably guess from the summary of his life above, this Blaine is a very different individual from the boy who once lived in the city. Once upon a time, Blaine was a highly emotional and driven young man who truly believed he'd have a music deal and a great big happy gay wedding before he was 25. Once upon a time, he might have ended up with those things too - Glee certainly ends with Blaine married and successful - but this isn't a Blaine who followed the scripted path of his life. Instead, his life was interrupted by a city that took him and made him into someone else entirely.
To start with, while Blaine isn't completely emotionless, his emotions tend to be more muted and under control now. He used to be very expressive and easily let himself get carried away by what he was feeling - something that showed in his performances as well - but now when off the stage he tends to self manage the way that he looks and acts. He got used to his family paying very close attention to his moods - worried that he'd go into a state if they didn't - so he's gotten used to constantly being mindful of what his arms, and face, and body is doing. He sometimes even mentally talks himself through it, having moments where he deliberately walks himself through everything he does. For example, he might be talking to his mom who seems upset and in his mind he'll think: 'I want to comfort my mother, so I need to reach out with my right hand and place it on her shoulder and squeeze lightly' before actually doing it. A lot of his actions seem slower now because of it, as he has to think through them and convince his body to move.
He also tends to play his emotions much closer to the chest now, schooling his face and eyes to protect any hint of what he's feeling. He actually started to do this while in the City with older David and it transferred over to Ohio too. In the city, he did it to hide his feelings about David's aging and his lingering feelings for Kurt. In Ohio he did it with Kurt because he was always so worried about betraying his hidden feelings for David and hurting Kurt. It then transferred to his therapists and doctors, who he wanted to trick into letting him out of hospital.
Blaine still has a real emotional center though, one that he locked up and kept to himself. This means he's still prone to bouts of intense depression and that when he does let go it really shows. The only time he does let go, though, is when he's on stage. This makes his performances highly emotionally fueled, to the point that he's not above crying or screaming on stage when it fits the mood of the piece he's working on.
Music always has been and always will be a life saver for Blaine. It helped him cope with his bullying issues, it brought Kurt into his life, it bound him with people in The City and gave him a way to express himself. Today, it is one of the few really good things he has and one of the things he never wants to let go. It is extremely easy for him to get lost in music and to focus on music entirely. It's one of the few things that he's still extremely passionate about.
The biggest change in Blaine is that he has developed a real distrust of his own perception of reality and copes with a lingering and always presence sense that his life isn't real. He has learned how to cope with this disconnect and manages to function, but there's always a doubt in his mind that this isn't all just an illusion. This break from reality came about because he remembered his experiences in The City and had to cope with the idea that he had experienced basically an entire life in the span of a night. While it had been disorienting to return to The City after going home to be canon updated, returning home and remembering everything completely shifted his understanding of his home reality.
He basically feels like the prisoner in Plato's Allegory of the Cave. He was freed from his dark cave and experienced sunlight and the outside world and now he's back in the cave and unable to fully articulate anything he experienced. It makes the dark shadows in the cave seem empty and meaningless. While he still has connections to the other prisoners chained to the cave - still loves his parents and Cooper, and will always have some kind of lingering feelings for Kurt - he can't get them to understand what he experienced and therefore feels as if he can't fully relate to them anymore.
He once told David that he felt like The City was more his home now than Ohio, and returning to Ohio with all of his memories of The City solidified that in every sense.
↠ Powers / Abilities:
Blaine has no supernatural abilities to speak of. He can, however, sing and play music. His favorite instrument at the moment is his guitar but he can also play the piano and the violin. When focused on a performance he also has a natural charisma and stage presence. The only time the "old" Blaine shows up is when he is performing. He still loves doing so in his heart and soul, he only stopped because his mental health got in the way.
When I mean he has good stage presence, this is a good sample of high school Blaine being a great big giant Ham: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4JS4f5cUDs
And here's Darren Criss because let's be real he's the reason Blaine has that talent and ability and this sort of performance is more in line with what AU!Blaine does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmrFhUEwrKE
↠ Languages: Blaine only speaks English fluently. He knows some words in Spanish and ASL, but only a very small, limited amount.
↠ Inventory:
+ The clothes on his back (black jacket, gray sweater, blue jeans, black snow boots)
+ His wallet (which has his ID, a couple 20 dollar bills, and an assortment of rewards cards)
+ A pair of reading glasses
+ A bottle of his medication
+ A guitar case strapped to his back which has a guitar, a couple guitar picks, and extra guitar string inside
↠ Reason for Playing This Character: I originally was drawn to Blaine for several reasons - not all of them were because he was played by Darren Criss but that was a contributing factor believe me. I adored that he was such a visible representation of a gay youth and that he had a life and exuberance that was fun to play. That said, he was never a perfect character. He had this major flaws including his selfishness and an inability to smoothly handle things when they didn't go exactly the way he wanted. Think: him sabotaging Kurt because Kurt starts to get more popular them him. (Really, he did that. Oh Blaine.) As my relationship with Glee became more fraught with annoyance, I eventually abandoned the character as well, but I also really enjoyed exploring the duality of being both an extremely talented and noticeably flawed person. This AU is that to the extreme. Blaine still has his talent and love of music and performing, but his circumstances have turned him inside out. His return to CoS will be full of internal and external conflict as he has to come to terms with if he thinks this is real and once he does, what that means for him.
↠ Reason for Bringing This Character Back: Because I like hurting myself, apparently. Also David is back and gimme. /grabby hands.
In all seriousness, this Blaine is going to be a very, very different experience to play. He isn't the idealistic yet selfish teen boy he once was. He's deeply wounded by his experiences here and playing that out will be a ton of fun for me.
↠ What is Your Character's Sin?: It used to be Wrath. He used to have issues dealing with a temper that would flair and make him do stupid things. All of that has been sapped from him. Now he lives a life in which he cares more about what he once had and what he left when he was forced back to Ohio. Because of that deep seated sense of longing, his Sin now is Envy, but, ironically what he's envious of most is the old him and what the old him used to have.
SAMPLES
↠ First Person:
[The video turns on with a close up of hands on the strings of a guitar. There's a moment where the person behind it adjusts the angle. When the music starts it's a quiet sort of song that hints to inner turmoil but a cry for connection.]
I feel like a loser.
I feel like I'm lost.
I feel like I'm not sure if I feel anything at all...
[The voice is crisp and practiced but still a candid performance with someone recording himself on the phone. When he's finally done with the song and pulls the recording up and smiles a bit at the screen.]
Original music is a lot more work than covers. Maybe I'll stick to those from now on. Any requests?
[ song credit to Darren Criss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGP4PUgQjJE ]
↠ Third Person:
Open mic night was one of the things that Blaine looked forward to. It gave him some moments to not have to think. He could just be on stage and sing and play and not be weighted down by his own mind. The guitar in his hand was familiar and comfortable. He loved it and felt lulled by it. He cared so much about being well that he practiced throughout the week after work.
Today, though, today for some reasons he could only hold the instrument dumbly and stare down at it. For some reason he kept remembering what it had felt like to play for the network in The City and have his friends respond. There would always be that brief moment of nervousness which would be quickly overpowered by confidence as he played and people responded to it with positive messages.
He feels this ache in his chest which cries out for him to find a way to connect with those people again. People everyone around him keeps insisting aren't real. He hasn't been this overcome by memories in a long time and the desire to go back in time, to be that person again, almost chokes him.
He wishes he had taken more advantage of the time he had had. He wishes he had told Draco how important he was, had insisted that David get over his issues and just be with him. He can't believe how stupid he had been to let pettiness get in the way. More than anything, he wishes he could go back and be that person again, be their Blaine again. He feels longing for what he once had in such an intense way that he isn't sure he'll be able to practice tonight. Hopefully he won't disappoint at the bar.
↠ Playing Sample: Blaine on the TDM: http://cityofsin-ooc.dreamwidth.org/86722.html?thread=2172866#cmt2172866
↠ Additional Samples: N/A
↠ Notes: N/A