#cooper and blaine

[endiness]

DARREN CRISS & MATT BOMER + hugs

[blackthornluce]

GLEE (2009-2015) - S03E15 « Big Brother »

[sepublic]

Continuing my ramblings on Predator (1987), there's an interesting choice of cinematography when the protagonists start fighting back against their titular antagonist; Once Anna explains the Predator's schtick as a chameleon, our heroes begin making new traps meant to fool the Predator. And as they do, there's some pretty choice shots emphasizing the bulging muscles of characters like Dillon and the like. Dillon is interesting especially given he's framed as the least masculine of the guys due to being a dishonest pencil-pusher; Here, it seems as if everyone, even Dillon, is reclaiming their masculinity with this chance to fight back. With this chance to turn back the odds and restore their conventional status as action heroes.....

And then we know how it all goes down; The Predator breaks free of the trap, and kills its last four victims of the film to leave only Dutch and Anna. The Predator as a dark reflection of the characters' machismo makes more sense when you consider how he can mimic the voices of the others, and the wound that puts him down is identical to that of his final victim Poncho; Both are felled by a log trap.

From the perspective of the Predator, other characters' voices become noticeable high-pitched; I wonder if this is, in a way, meant to show how even a badass like Dutch is emasculated in the eyes of the Yautja. The line between Predator and the protagonists is further blurred when Dutch achieves his own form of cloaking that is also sabotaged when he comes into contact with water; He learns to fight more like the Predator, relying on stealth, ambush, and the environment around him to hide and attack. So now the Predator becomes the hunted too. Its final words are to repeat Dutch's only lines back at him before laughing in Billy's hearty voice.

You know that one post circulating around here, where people joke about what if the Predator was more the exception to his home's culture, rather than the norm? What if he was the Yautja equivalent to bored middle-class dudes who decide to go on a hunting trip for fun, to collect trophies from lions and other animals that are otherwise harmless and victimized, to flex how 'badass' he is? And meanwhile everyone else back home is rolling their eyes because what a loser. What if that's really just what the Predator is meant to symbolize, in the context of the original film at least; People who like to kill and hunt to show off how masculine they are.

But in the end, it's quite easy and cowardly, arguably, to rely on a cloaking device, whilst sniping oblivious targets from afar. Beforehand, I wonder if we could take into account how animals are treated by the human protagonists beforehand; One of the characters kicking a bird aside, Mac stabbing a scorpion. Them flexing their macho attitudes by killing an animal that for all intents and purposes is pretty helpless against the one who gets it. And then the roles are reversed where the human protagonists become the game for the Predator to make trophies out of.

I find it fascinating Dutch's reaction when Mac admits that Blain was his friend; You get the sense that this is quite uncharacteristic a thing for Mac to do. Nowadays it seems like a pretty obvious and understandable thing for any guy to do, but for someone like Mac, it IS quite the confession of emotional vulnerability here. Plus there's Poncho being a sad sopping wet cat for the rest of the film, once Hawkins is the first to die.

If Predator is a slasher film, then it subscribes to its own version of the rules, just as it has its own version of a 'final girl' in muscled badass Dutch, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know how those who have premarital sex die first? It seems Predator operates on similar rules; Hawkins makes crude jokes about female genitalia and is killed first. Blain calls everyone else the f-slur and proclaims his own sexual prowess, in addition to being your typical badass macho man who's too tough to feel pain, and then he's unceremoniously killed off pretty early too. This is despite, or rather because of, being the "big guy" who wields a giant mini-gun.

Mac and Billy are stoic, but Mac unravels psychologically and sings lyrics about objectifying a woman shortly before his death, and Billy remains rattled throughout by the Predator's presence, even openly admitting to Poncho that he's afraid. And of course there's Poncho, who is on the verge of tears 24/7 once the movie's genre shifts, voice constantly wavering.

On a final note, one could be half-joking about homoerotic undertones between Mac and Blain, at least on Mac’s end. Which could be an interesting discussion in and of itself when you also account for Blain’s use of the f-slur and how he’s the most stereotypically masculine of the group. Because I know the military is known for being a place where homosexuality was often discovered and explored. How would that factor into the larger themes of masculinity in this film, I wonder?

[arizonaaaaaa]

Ranking glee men from gayest to homophobic

Canon gay:

1-Elliot Gilbert

2-Kurt Hummel

2.2-Alistair

3-Blaine Anderson

Not canon gay but it’s fruity as hell:

3.2- Jesse St. James

4-Mason McCarthy

5-Rory Flanagan

6-Ryder Lynn

Bisexual/pansexual:

7-Sam Evans

8-Jake Puckerman

9-Noah Puckerman

Made out with a guy:

10-Will Schuester

11-Brody Weston

Straight:

12-Mike Chang

13-Roderick Meeks

14-Joe Hart

Homophobic:

15-Artie Abrams

16-Finn Hudson

17-Cooper Anderson

Homophobic and gay:

18-Spencer Porter

19-Dave Karofsky

20-Sebastian Smythe

21-Myron Muskovitz

[nicoise]

i actually blame blaine's parents for why he's Like That

i bet blaine's parents were decently loving (were genuinely concerned and spent time with him after the school shooting episode) but incapable of understanding him. and even though their view of him is incorrect, they still don't really like what they see (see: getting hands dirty to restore masculinity). blaine grows up being made to feel like there's something wrong with him which is why he tries so hard to sham normal. because he tries so hard, he's also afraid of messing up (silly love songs: "i don't wanna screw this up.")

because he doesn't trust his parents to not be judgmental of him, he stops confiding in them at a young age. this is consistent with how he ends up planning to transfer back to dalton in s4 without telling anyone, how he's so stubborn not to admit his guilty pleasure, and how he picks a fight with kurt about texting chandler rather than admit his worries about kurt going to NYC.

i feel like a major breakdown in his relationship with kurt was that bit in the s6 breakup: "i feel like you're just silently judging me." guess why he's sensitive about that

because blaine thinks that just being himself isn't enough to get people to like him, he goes out of his way to do things for people. he takes on the role of kurt's protector which lasts into s3 (michael slushie incident) and becomes insecure when he can't hold onto it (tested). he sang at the s2 prom even though it's not his prom or his glee club. he helped tina with her diva week thing even though he was sick. you get the sense that in some way helping people helps him feel secure in his self worth.

the distant-but-loving thing with his parents probably also explains why he's terrible at long distance relationships. it's easy for him to assume kurt forgot about him because he's already inclined not to fully trust people's affection for him

[gleecontext]

GLEE S03E15 Big Brother

[klaineccfanficlibrary]

Hi I've been looking for this age fap fic where Blaine is older and lives with Kurt's older brother and Kurt comes to stay with them and Kurt's brother has to leave for some reason so it's just Kurt and blaine in the apartment and there was one part where Blaine had been hooking up with someone on the couch and Kurt got up to see what the noise was and he and Blaine locked eyes while Blaine was with the other guy? That's all I remember tbh.

That's an easy one! Great fic by anxioussquirrel. Although you have it switched around, Blaine is Cooper's younger brother. ~Lynne

It's Not Babysitting by @anxiousssquirrel

AU, present time. Kurt Hummel is 28 and has been living in New York for ten years now. He has a good job, nice apartment and two best friends anyone could wish for: Sebastian, a snarky lawyer, and Cooper, a workaholic investment specialist. What he doesn't have is luck in relationships. But then Blaine, Cooper's 17-year-old brother comes to NY to spend the summer. He turns out to be gorgeous and quickly develops a huge crush on Kurt...

~~~~~

ETA: My bad!! Wrong fic (although It's Not Babysitting is really good, too!). Here's your fic!!

Off Limits by munchkinpandas

For once in Blaine Anderson’s life he was pretty happy with how his life was going. He had an epic college experience with his best friend Jamie. They partied way too much, studied way too little and slept with their fair share of the best ASU had to offer. But one rejection letter later and Jamie was moving to San Diego to pursue his PHD while Blaine got accepted to the doctorate program at their Alma Mater. ASU without Jamie didn’t make sense to Blaine and he was not happy about it. To top everything off Jamie asked Blaine to look after his little brother Kurt who was starting his freshman year of college. Kurt wasn’t the little kid he pictured when Jamie asked Blaine to let him move in and it was clear things were about to change even more than Blaine had expected. In short, Blaine Anderson was screwed.

[esilher]

Welcome to the Cooper Anderson dance class!  We'd like to celebrate HIM, the one and only, on this anniversary day with an artisitc collaboration between me and @mynonah! Although he only showed himself to us in 1 (ONE!) episode, 12 years ago, he lives rentfree in our minds and hearts since then.  Thank you to all the fanfic writers who wrote and still write him into Klaine's life!  Please don't forget to point your fingers at Coop today!

[angelhummel]

Glee + Reductress Headlines (103/?)

[blaintism]

every blaine anderson performance: rio/hungry like the wolf

[b3y0ndm3asur3]

how have neither of them aged a single day

[jauntilyplacedcaps]

[spaceorphan18]

@yadivagirl who wanted to know what issues I had with the Duran Druan Mash up and You Make Me Feel So Young

So, I want preface this by saying, I do actually like both of these songs.

Rio/Hungry Like the Wolf: I realized I haven't watched this in a long, long time - there are beats that are really funny. And the dynamic between Cooper and Blaine is hysterical and very telling and ooff, it is tragic that Matt Bomer was only in one episode.

Anyway - my big issue here is a technical one. The sound of this performance is so processed that it's very apparent that they've done stuff to the audio. It kind of destroys the illusion that it's happening live.

Also, oof, people don't kill me - I'm not a huge fan of Blaine's outfits in Season 3. I know the whole bowtie thing was a thing but *scrunches nose* fine.

You Make Me Feel So Young: This one is perhaps a little more complicated to talk about. And maybe indicative of the biggest issue I had/have with the back part of Season 5. They didn't have Kurt and Blaine have many happy moments to offset their struggles.

This performance is just so complex. I will say, unlike Rio, technically, it's great. The boys both sound wonderful on it, and the audio is just perfect. I like the sound of it.

The scenes are, hmmm, it straddles this very vague line of where Kurt is and it's kind of confusing until you get the full view of what is going on in the episode. It's the morning after the bug incident, where Kurt got no sleep, and he's struggling because his partner is attached to his hip and he needs some space and doesn't know how to express that. So there's a little bit of intentional agitation from Kurt throughout the whole song.

And it is purposeful, and it's appropriate for the story, and it's supposed to at odds with Blaine's already living as an 80yo man mentality. (They are young already, why are they even singing this? Oh because Blaine is trying to make his life a 40s musical.) But we get so little domestic Klaine in the show that something that's it's a shame we didn't get to see any of their honeymoon period before the strains of an actual relationship happen.

That said, there are moments I genuinely like - like the pillow fight where they both seem to actually be enjoying it, and is an actual youthful thing, and when they come back from shopping - and Kurt is in a much better mood. (and would have been in an even better mood had he been able to have his sexy times...)

So, ha, there ya go! :)

[mynonah]

Anderbros

- Coop, STOP! You're ruining my HAIR!

- Aww, I missed you, Squirt. You missed me too, didn't you??

- Don't call me that!

- But you LOVE it.

- No, I... ugh. ...I missed you too, Coop. ❤️