#oldtestleper

[angelwalking]

out of pure curiosity, how much/what type of angst wld people need to add for you to vibe with langdonmel?

oh, i don't know. engaging with langdon's addiction, mel's oncoming caregiver burnout, cheating. i've read a few that were pretty good and dealt with some of it, it's just not the norm. maybe they're just not suited to the kind of stuff i like.

[kaasknot]

oh PLEASE tell me abt corr/mereel!!

GLADLY! it's set in the period between Triple Zero and True Colors, when mereel whipped corr into a commando, and it's got lots of skirata bashing >: )

***

“Heads up,” Mereel said, tossing him a clean pair of briefs. Corr dutifully dropped the towel and put them on. Mereel, eyed Corr critically. “You’ve lost a lot of mass.”

Corr looked down at himself. His muscles weren't standing out as clearly as Mereel’s, and he'd been enjoying a little too much civvie food, but he was hardly deconditioned. He’d kept up in the raid. “Gained more fat than I lost muscle,” he said, trying not to be sharp, but mostly failing. “And I fucking lost both arms. Excuse me if my back and chest haven't recovered.”

Mereel’s eyes snapped to his face, assessing him in that weird, x-ray way the Nulls had. Whatever he saw, he turned away without comment. He pored over the shirts on his bed, then pulled up an alarmingly orange t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. “Try this one.”

Corr didn't take it. “It’s sleeveless.”

Mereel shook it at him. “Yeah, it shows off your assets. C’mon, time’s a-wastin’.”

“It’s sleeveless,” Corr said again. Why wasn't he getting it?

“Yeah,” Mereel said slowly, like he was talking to an idiot. “And you’ll be the only person in that club with two metal hands, so advertise it, maybe.”

Corr didn't want to advertise it. He was a walking advertisement. Every goddamn day people awkwardly looked away when they saw his hands were durasteel instead of flesh, or worse, deliberately called attention to them to ease their own discomfort. He didn't want to be reminded with every stranger’s look that he was fucked up, he could remember that just fine on his own. He glared at the shirt, and then at Mereel. “No.”

“The fuck is your problem?” Mereel snapped, throwing the shirt back down on the bed. “Do you want to go out tonight, or not?”

No, Corr thought mutinously, like a one-year cadet. He wasn't a cadet anymore, though, he was all grown up and deployed, and Mereel deserved better than his temper tantrum. He sucked in breaths, pushing away the awful tension in his chest. “I—I don't know,” he finally said.

“You don't know,” Mereel said softly, and Corr was abruptly aware that he was alone in a room with a—a brother, undeniably that, but still one who everyone said was psychotic as all nine hells.

He immediately hated himself for even thinking it. Mereel had helped him with his arms, he—he wouldn't do anything to Corr, he wanted to go fucking clubbing with him, have fun with him, and all of a sudden it was too much. Corr raised his hands to clasp the back of his neck like he always did when he got overwhelmed, but the harsh bite of cold metal startled him out of it, and that was. The heat in his cheeks surged up behind his eyes and. He couldn't stay here.

He lurched out into the main room, unfocused thoughts flashing through his mind of heading back to barracks—or maybe Qibbu’s, that's where he was supposed to be, these days. The tidy pile of his armor stopped him short. That, and the less-tidy pile of his blacks, rank enough to smell even where he stood, and his escape was spoiled as easily as that. He hesitated because he couldn't face pulling a filthy bodyglove over his water-clean skin.

He wavered, torn absolutely, before inertia won and he retreated to sit on Mereel’s ratty couch. He propped his hard, cold, metal, un-fucking-feeling elbows on his knees and stared at his hands. Who the fuck was he trying to kid. He was a GAR logistics clone, not a commando, and sure as shit not an ARC. He wasn't EOD, either. Not when something as simple as a brother saying it could have blown up in our faces sent him into a tailspin like this.

The floor creaked beside him, in the doorway to the bedroom. Corr was absolutely certain Mereel knew every loose floorboard in this apartment, and if he wanted Corr to hear him step on one, then it absolutely wouldn't be by accident. Corr didn't care. He didn't care that Mereel was leaning in the doorway staring at him, he didn't care that he was wearing the man’s underwear while rejecting his invitation. He didn't—he was too fucking tired. He’d humiliated himself every possible way in front of a legend, and he was still… alive.

Distantly, it occurred to him he was probably in the comedown from the stims.

Less distantly, the floorboard creaked again as Mereel went back in the bedroom. He poked around, not being quiet but not making excess noise, either, opening drawers and lockers and—putting away his wardrobe, Corr supposed. He was sorry for spoiling that, the way he was sorry for everything he did and was. He stared blankly at the weight bench across from him and let reality fade.

He came back to the sound of Mereel setting something down on the arm of the couch. Corr didn’t turn to look, because everything was feeling sharp and awful, and just the weight of Mereel’s eyes was too much.

“I’m heading out,” he said, his voice low. “If I’m not back by morning, tell Ordo. There’s a washer unit in the closet, instructions are inside the lid.” He hesitated, as if he wanted to say more, but couldn’t find the words. Finally he knocked his knuckles gently against the doorpost. “Stay as long as you want.”

It felt like he was turning himself inside out, but Corr forced himself to speak. “Thanks.”

“Ba’gedet’ye.” Mereel sounded—it didn’t matter how he sounded, Corr couldn’t trust his brain in this state. Nulls didn’t get embarrassed.

Mereel knocked on the doorframe again, then crossed Corr’s field of vision to get to the door. He’d paired his black pants with a neon pink polo, collar popped. He snagged his keys from the thicket of receipts, and with no more ceremony than that, headed out into the Coruscanti night.

Corr sat for a while longer. Mostly pitying himself, which was a fucking awful show for a clone, but he figured it didn’t count if there was no one to see. Eventually he mustered enough will to look over to what Mereel had left for him.

A small pile of clothes and a blanket. Corr sniffed hard to keep the tears back. It took him a little longer, but it was easier to keep moving now that he’d started. There was a shirt on top. Cotton, nothing fancy, but when Corr unfolded it, it had long sleeves. A couple tears did squeeze out then. Stars and planets, he was pathetic. Crying over a shirt. He pulled it on, going slowly so he didn’t get it caught in his metal joints, and the relief of being covered again was deep and—not pleasant, exactly, but settling. Like finding good cover on an op.

Then was a loose pair of drawstring pants, and the blanket—cheap, mass-produced, but probably warm, and when Corr held it up to his cheek, it was the softest thing he’d felt in months.

He had to stand to put the pants on. Standing was good. Now that he was up, he might as well clean his blacks. He’d never cleaned them in a washer unit before, that’s what the laundry section on his old destroyer had been for, but he’d done it once or twice in the sink, or in an upturned breastplate when on a long campaign and he’d gotten sick of stewing in his own juices.

They weren’t that bad now, thankfully. He read the instructions inside the washer lid twice, then once more for good measure, then tossed his and Mereel’s blacks in and set the cycle running. It made a quiet white noise that dulled the edge of his hypersensitivity.

He looked at the fridge. Mereel had said he was welcome, but Corr didn’t feel welcome. He considered his stomach. It wasn’t growling, but it would soon. He shrugged. Not the first time he’d had to skip a meal; he’d survive.

That was about all he had in him. He went through the apartment turning off lights, then curled up on the couch and pulled the blanket over his head. The traffic and street lights couldn't reach him, here. His own inadequacy couldn't, either. He slept.

[bedlamsbard]

oldtestleper replied to your post: undercrowns replied to your post “disregardcanon...

i read backbone and then watched rebels and kept wondering when they were going to bring up hera’s imperial backstory…… honestly iconic of u

This is delightful to hear.

[thebisexualmandalorian]

ok ok bro ok i fucking got this. 28, agender/genderqueer(?) they/them, libra/sag, its uhhh complicated, brown eyes, introverted, cooking n writing, fall

YEE YOU’RE SO CLOSE

I’m actually 29, I forgot to update my header lmao

YES

YEP

Libra/scorpio!

Ye

Yep!

Bingo

Hell yeah

Yes!

[thesummerstorms]

oldtestleper replied to your post “”

petition to kill jinart

SIGNED.

[sauntering-down]

🐄

everyone else is too weak to face my Pictures folder so you’re the only one who gets this screenshot of some really cool-looking soda

[angelwalking]

Please tell us your Thoughts on noho hank

Well, here’s the thing. My thoughts on Noho Hank are much more about the perceptions of him than the character himself. I love him and I think he’s an amazing character and he makes me laugh so hard.

However. I do see this very interesting thing happening where people are (rightfully) tearing Barry apart for the things he does. For being selfish, for having no concept of personal consequences, and then they always are like “and oh yeah, he kills people!” Which, yes. You’re right. He does. But then, it’s like, everyone has collectively decided that Noho Hank is this shining beacon of pure light and happiness and jokingly say things like “if he dies I will riot.”

But like... Not to be obvious or whatever, but Noho Hank is also a murderer. He’s a mobster. He and Goran orchestrate the murder of this innocent man and then Hank orders the trigger pulled on Ryan before Barry can go through with it. He’s out there with Cristobal running heroin. (Maybe I am more sensitive than some to that part because I live in what is essentially the heroin hub of the midwest.) Like he may be an optimist by nature, but he is in no way a good or pure person.

I think the turn for me when I started to see his brand of comedy as slightly closer to Sinister on the sliding scale of Funny-to-Scary was watching the documentary The Act of Killing. It’s the doc Bill mentions in an interview where war criminals gleefully recreate their own war crimes. And I have no idea if this was Bill and Alec’s intention when writing the Chechens, but someone on a reblog of that interview clip (I cannot remember who, I’m sorry; it might even have been you!) tagged it with something like “I can see where he got the inspiration for the Chechens being Like That.” And I kind of went, oh..... yeah. Because the gangsters in The Act of Killing, like, if you totally separate them from their crimes, are generally affable. They’re funny, they’re chatty, they have kids and grandkids. So that comparison made it just a little bit harder for me.

And I mean, I get it. At its base Barry is a dark comedy, and a lot of that dark comedy comes from Hank and the Chechens being Affably Evil. Like, he talks about looking for heroin tables on pinterest. It’s funny that he talks about these horrible things like they’re Just Another Day At The Office; it’s part of his charm, that he can find joy in the mundane-ness as he bumbles through his job. Like, metatextually, I understand why he is Like That. It’s funny and a really interesting contrast with Barry “the angst machine” Berkman. And when you start thinking about his narrative function being essentially comedic, the serious examination of his actions starts to break down a little. So I get why it’s been really easy for people to latch onto his positivity and optimism. I think also there’s an element where he’s not trying to hide himself, or pretend to be something that he isn’t, like Barry is; he isn’t tortured by the things he’s doing. There’s a quality of openness about him.

But also like, he’s a mobster who gleefully runs heroin and orders the murder of innocent people.

[thebisexualmandalorian]

oldtestleper replied to your post “Nibral: What are you going to do when the war ends?”

lfjskdkdj he’s so evil of course he’d be a politician he’d be great at it

Yeah basically lmao.  He wants power, and who’s more powerful than a politician?  The irony is that he absolutely fucking hates dealing with other politicians, but they play into his weird little games, so he does it anyway.