#but. love his strategy so far and love his confessionals .

[heathneycanon]

real survivor needs bowie totaldrama

[pontevoix]

curtains are drawn, & the lights are switched off. even in the dark, armin can see the way that old movie posters curl at the corners when he steps into the room, he. if armin were to guess, the posters have had residency on the walls for at least ten years. it’s a childhood bedroom that feels like a sickroom - the way that the bedding is starting to smell like sweat & salt & the way that the room feels abandoned.

as far as armin can tell, eren has sequestered himself in his room in carla's house for two weeks now. he forgets to eat, forgets to shower. carla says that she hasn't smelled tobacco or flavored smokes, so even addictive habits of comfort are cast aside. eren has never done well with nicotine cravings. it makes him restless, & armin sees none of that now.

as far as armin can tell, eren has resigned himself to playing dead. to sucking old memories out of a childhood room & imagining that he is dead, dead, dead.

it sticks stones into the pit of armin’s stomach. it sticks cotton to back of his throat. for a minute, he thinks that he can’t do this. he’s not equipped to come here, uninvited, & pretend like he’s enough to usher in reparations.

armin’s body is not his own when he steps into the sickroom, when his socked feet tread a path against scratched hardwood. he swears that he can’t do this.

the memories are still coming to him. they’re still striking lighting down his spin & making old memories a vivid thing, making them a second life.

if eren were to look at him now, he’s not sure how he could look at the scar at his neck & stand steady now that eren knows. or at least, armin presumes that he knows. he assumes that eren remembers the origins of the mark, that eren remembers that he has been capable of massive bloodshed. that he knows that he had not allowed himself to survive long enough to earn a death declared by trial & jury, knows that he had managed to wage war so terrible that he left himself standing alone & redhanded.

still. armin should have done better the first time. he should have recognized the signs before eren had devolved, before he split down the paths, & shared his voice with a cursed god. he should have negotiated better than he did, trusted eren less. in this life, he should have done better to prevent the return of memories, though the memories were always inevitable. if armin hadn’t been enough to trigger the memories, certainly someone else would have been.

eren was always going to remember. he had carried the weight of three of the nine. & he had had loved too fiercely, so there was never any chance that he would escape remembering.

armin’s feet carry him anyway as though he were walking into a confessional. he can’t do this, he thinks. this is not a holy space. it’s a sickroom, but eren has always been the center of gravity. dead or alive, he is enough to pull those around him. even in this life, armin doesn’t think he could refuse eren properly. he doesn’t think he can break orbit.

but he can at least try to do better than he did, can try to remember old strategies that he learned as commander, as a survivor of the war. this way, he can try to prevent damage before it’s happened.

his feet bring him to the bed. uninvited, he sits at the corner of the mattress. absently, he realizes that eren might mistake him for his mother - he hadn't announced himself. he’s not sure how to announce himself. saying a simple greeting like hey feels inadequate for addressing catatonia, for the type of grief that aligns with culpability.

they sit in silence for too long. eren doesn’t look at him, & armin keeps staring at curled poster corners.

but then armin’s phone dings an email notification in his pocket & gives him away. he flinches visibly, & he finds himself that he’s grateful that his expression is invisible in the dark room.

still, there is enough light creeping in from the bottom of the eren’s bedroom door & from his alarm clock that armin can see eren draw his knees closer to his chest.

‘ sorry, ‘ armin finally says as himself. his voice cracks a little — as though the silence they had shared had been enough to dry him, his voice, of his ability to speak comfortably. he tries to purse his lips into a smile that’s comforting, but it goes unseen. ‘ for intruding. your mom said it was okay, i think. she’s worried. but that’s what moms do, right ? ‘

when he’s nervous, when his voice dries out . . . he rambles. armin always remembers carla to be someone who worries for her son, for his suffering. he doesn’t really remember his own mother as ever having hovered the way that carla does. his mother is a warm presence, but she has never hovered. she has never worried. her warmth is the consistency of distance, & carla hovers in a way that she becomes warm. she is fireside on a cold night.

regardless, it’s a poor way to announce himself. armin surrenders. he sighs & surrenders & scoots himself backwards until his back is aligned with the wall. the motion makes a worn pillow squeeze into the gap between the mattress & the wall.

he sits, & eren lays defensive beside him. they sit in silence for too long. eren doesn’t look at him, & armin keeps staring at curled poster corners. he can’t do this, but he can at least try to do better than he did.

hearing his voice is enough to make eren go rigid, & armin thinks that he might startle enough to go on defense, to raise his fists — but eren regains himself & tries to fall back into catatonia. i can't really talk about it. not to you, not to anybody, eren finally says as though it will force his muscles to relax. as though it will be a convincing enough statement to make armin leave.

i can't really talk about it. not to you, not to anybody. *eren & armin ; for @chaoslulled

eren’s voice is enough to startle armin’s attention away poster corners. his gaze jumps to eren, to the base of his neck where his hair falls towards the pillow & exposes the mark of damnation & death against his his throat.

instead, he draws his knees to his chest & imagines himself small & thinks of his nausea when he remembered, when eren had shown him that portrait of the colossal titan.

he stares at the mark.

‘ i know, ‘ he concedes. it surprises him how steady his voice sounds. ‘ i think . . . you’ve felt like that before. & i’m really sorry. ‘

they sit in silence for too long. eren doesn’t look at him. armin doesn’t try to apologize for more. apologies only go so far.he doesn’t try to talk about remembering more directly than what he already says. but he stares at the mark & feels calm steal over him. he’s always been good at crisis. he’s learned to be good at crisis.

so he crosses a boundary & ignores catatonia. he presses his fingers against the base of eren’s neck, against stray strands of hair, & against the death mark. eren’s skin feels clammy. he still feels alive, even if he’s trying to imagine that he’s dead, dead, dead.

‘ you know something ? i’m really glad to see you. it makes me really glad to see you, ‘ he muses.

saying it helps. saying it settles some of the weight in the pit of his stomach. armin unravels, stretches his legs out straight. he wiggles his socked toes & settles so that he might become a fixture for as long as needed.

i can't really talk about it. not to you, not to anybody, eren said. & it’s still not enough to make armin leave.

[captaincassianandorr]

Survivor 46

Lol so far I'm only into the beginning but I love Soda and Tevin is gorgeous.

Bhanu is so enthusiastic. And it's adorable in a weird way. WHY DID HE EAT AN ANT ON TV?? I hope Maria and Tim don't get cut for being a pair. HAHA Maria omg "I'm going to be in my minivan driving the game." The dumb and dumber alliance is a funny name for an alliance. But I am here for dumb alliance names. Liz what are you doing?? Telling your tribe you have money and you have companies. And Tevin's reaction was funny lol because he's out here for money. It reminds me of Kitty in Aus Survivor. Jelinsky just sitting there lol looking at the camera like why me? And then trying to quit? Q just looking at him like why. I feel a bit bad for Jess who doesn't want to talk strategy just because she's quiet. Omg the scene at Nami with Soda and Tevin singing and some other dancing was really cute. And then Hunter's confessional about how he didn't enjoy singing camp songs and it's followed him out there HAHAHAHA. Okay I relate to Hunter because I too am very introverted and find it exhausting trying to keep up with people's energy. The Andy Griffith Alliance is sending me. Did the editors have to go so hard by making it black and white too? Charlie is kind of adorable and I did not see myself rooting for him but he's a Taylor Swift fan? And he seems eager to get to know the other people on his tribe and learn about them. I'm not sure if trying to sway Charlie is a good idea. If you get rid of your strength early on, you probably struggle in the challenges. And Charlie playing both sides lol. I am curious where he goes with this. Does he implode? Please tell me they vote him off with a Taylor Swift song playing. VENUS What ?? She got called a princess so she knows she is on the bottom for that fact alone?? WHAT lol? And then she starts looking for an idol? Randen I have no idea who you are but omg this drama with him and Venus is hilarious. How dare you accuse me of doing what I am actually doing?? Tevin's facial expression during the vote/torch/skull card when he was watching Jelinsky lie was so funny. Like girrrll why you lying like that? You clearly don't have it. And then Jelinsky just flat out telling them he has the skull card and losing his vote??? he gives up so quickly?? and just quits? I have a feeling a woman is going to win this season. Maybe Tiffany or Kenzie or Soda? And then Jess collapsed the shelter at Yanu? lol and then she saying she would lose a immunity idol if she found one? Tiffany finding the beware advantage is interesting. Hoping she gets the idol. And Jelinsky saying several hours means 7 hours? Since when Jelinsky? lol OMG the SURVIVOR GECKO. I love the Survivor Gecko. Poor Yanu stuck with the gecko on the obstacle. Nami is doing amazingly. And Siga I love because they seem to work really well together but have interesting dynamics. Bhanu is growing on me which I wasn't expecting. I love Jess and don't want her to go :( I understand where she's coming from with being neurodivergent and feeling like the tribe doesn't get you. Jalinsky was so chaotic and out there I'm not surprised at all they decided to vote him out lol. Quitting is not really helpful or useful to a tribe. But at least he was a fun first boot! Curious what Venus will be up to next episode. She did make me laugh in this episode. Hoping Jess can pull through and do better than the last episode.

[survivor-trinidad-and-tobago]

Episode 4: "Bye bye Nick. I don't even think he'll notice that he got kicked out of the tribe chat"—Kolby

In this round: Calypso and Soca dominate at Scattergories, sending Maracas straight back to Tribal Council; Nick is still sick, discusses his diarrhea in his tribal council answer, does not submit a list for Scattergories, and does indeed not notice that he got kicked out of the tribe chat

Soca Confessionals

Alex

Glad that we're all still safe, not glad Calypso keeps getting TT$. A) Because I want those TT$. But B) Because I have NO idea what's happening over there. With how social Zee is and with how little I talked to Lexi I have no idea where they stand. Champ said I was her #1 but she's spent more time post-swap than we spent together so I don't know how things may have changed. Also still ever aware that if Raffy or Michael have an idol and they play it successfully if we did go to tribal one of the Elite is gone. I've talked more with Raffy than it sounds like Steven or Kaleigh have and I don't know if that's good or bad for me. I haven't talked to Michael at all since the first day of the swap. I've also done suuuch strategy with the Elite that it's making me rethink how to move forward: original 5 or the Elite and maybe try and pull in Champ? I've got options, I've just gotta make sure I have the opportunity to make use of them.

Kaleigh

okay, two nights ago steven and alex and i had a little soca elite phone call and talked for over an hour. we talked about our idol hunting and advantages disadvantages etc and i am liiiiiike…………. very uncertain about whether or not i was caught in a LIEEEE which is like torturous. basically we decided to pool our info on idol hunting (which is actually something zee and i did, her idea, love it, but we didn’t get far) and i made the doc and we were sharing info (which, i’m pretty sure at least steven withheld some info bc he said he did all but one idol hunt and i didn’t actually count bc i am lazy and drc but it FELLLTTT like he was short when we were going over the ones we had done… but i could be absolutely wrong LMAO) , andddd i was like, ok i should maybe keep SOOOMETHING to myself IDK this is survivor i need to stop being SO transparent and bimboey... so i decided to not tell them about a $5 advantage i got (NOT WORTH IT FOR THE RECORD) and pretend i hadn’t done it. BUT. earlier in the convo we had just casually been talking about the things we’d done and i didn’t REMEMBER that the abandoned sandcastles was the one that gave me $5 , and steven was like “yeah i helped the kids w the sandcastles and got nothing,” and i was like “oh yeah i explored the abandoned sandcastles and got nothing” LMFAOOOO so then when i made the DOCument, i invited steven and alex, and i had typed out the sandcastle one as one of the options, but not marked a result, even though if i hadn’t actually done it like i claimed i wouldn’t even have that information as the options. and steven was like “didn’t u say u did the abandoned sandcastles?” and i was like no? i thought u did? LMFAOOO OH MY GODDDD!!! anyway… uh… so yeah idk if he clocked me or not (i feel like it’s likely that he did bc he is *very* observant and is def like keeping close track of everything everyone else is doing) or if alex noticed but uh… yeah. so. that has been haunting me since last night. i literally talked about it in therapy yesterday and had nightmares about it that night LMFAO i feel *so* bad , like , getting caught in a lie is among the worst feelings!! sigh. so hopefully i haven’t broken trust with my little alex/steven alliance bc i honestly like them. it’s veeeery different to build trust w someone LIVE on a call than through text. like idk they kind of … j become real ppl.

also, we talked about who we would vote out if we lost (not that we thought we’d lose), and i was like, tbh, probably raffy only bc he doesn’t seem *at all* interested in working with me. and steven was like, idk he’s good at challenges and we wanna win! and i was like, idc, michael seems fine at challenges too AND he is way friendlier to me and doesn’t rly seem like he’s playing super hard , which we allllllllllllll agreed that raffy was like *PLAAAAYING*. anyway so i said i’d vote off raffy if we went to tribal last night, and then yesterday raffy RANDOMLY messaged me after not saying anything for days and fully letting our convo die , and he’s all casually like “hey how’s your day” LMAO ok bud!! i assume it’s steven who was like hey you need to be friendlier to kaleigh … bc i do sense that they have an actual full blown alliance. or maybe raffy just decided to check in! idk. impossible rly to know!!!

i actually hate that i will very likely be betrayed by steven or alex (like, hello, that’s the point of the game and we *all* know it) OR that i’d have to betray them. like i hate that! why am i doing this! but also i’m enjoying getting to know them and do these fun little challenges! this is just kind of an intense experience!

i miss zee, we all agreed that she was so lovable and veeeeryyyy dangerous and steven said she’d probably be an early post-merge vote off, which makes sense to me cuz like i’m thinking most ppl are clocking her as a very lovable angel and as someone they don’t want to compete against at the end. sigh.

today raffy again offered himself up for the boat excursion and after much delibration alex and steven and i agreed to send him. i really think steven is allied w him and i’m considering talking to alex about it. sigh. i think the worst part about this game is that i’m building friendships with these ppl and then will betray them or be betrayed by them and then there is not likely going to be any kind of repair or continuation of the friendship bc these connections aren’t as deep as they would be if we were all stuck on an island together LOL annnyyyyyyyyway i’m interesting to see who else is on the excursion and who gets voted out from maracas. i hope that when zee and i are reunited we can resume our alliance without too much distrust or too many other well developed alliances. i wonder if anyone has an idol? i feel like someone must! idk who!

Steven

Raffy

I had a good call with Steven where I basically said that Kaleigh and Alex are a duo and we should target them. Hopefully it works

Michael

Honestly? Nothing much is going on. Makes me feel on the outs but I'm hoping that's just because we haven't been to tribal in 2 challenges. I hope to keep winning challenges so I can at least make it to the merge.

Calypso Confessionals

Astyn

Champ

Honestly the tribe is so chill that there’s literally nothing exciting going on at all, hopefully we can just keep winning so this game is easy for me lol! Idk if there gonna be like a second swap or these are the teams we are gonna be in until merge but I feel very confident in my spot rn

Lexi

Loved how quickly my team came up with a plan for this challenge! It was nice and simple so this one wasn’t super eventful but I’m relieved we won and it was so fun to see everyone’s answers.

Zee

As it stands rn I'm a bit behind on confessionals. But as far as the scattergories challenge goes, I can't say much because I woke up to having been sat out. I'm not upset bc we won anyway, and also because I did kind of take over the movie challenge but i did let my tribe know I'd like to not be sat out in future bc I'm almost positive I'll be able to participate in every challenge, and if I can i want to :P

Colin

I’m so glad we won bc I’ve been so inactive. Somehow not as inactive as the rest of my tribe lmao. If worse comes to worst, I got a handy lil idol too. I’m just tryna make it to merge

Jack

Hey babes love my tribe and I’m happy we r doing well I’m happy we don’t gotta go to tribal but if we do in the future I wanna target zee🫣I heard she ran the OG tribe and I don’t like that 🤭 we will see what happens tho love y’all

Maracas Confessionals

Tanner

I am doing good making those connections

Eman

If my work calendar didn't look completely ugly, I would currently be creating a spreadsheet with all the remaining members of all the teams and what I know of them. e.g., Nick - Maracas - largely absent and non-participatory. I'm half convinced he's gonna strike out this round and spare us the need to vote. Makes me more bitter that Kathryn offered herself up, because I'm pretty sure even in Hawaii she coulda come up with a list of 8 things. Tanner - Maracas - god grant me the confidence of a white man that needs to be handheld through the process and yet still thinks he's in a good position Kolby - Love the enthusiasm, not sure about his strategic chops yet Tony - closest alley - hope we can hold on and continue to work together post-merge. I might be telling him to much, but I'm trying to show that I'm trustworthy and I'm hoping he'll reciprocate because I think we could be more powerful together than apart. And so on, there's even things that can be inferred through a close read of the posts (like that Steven, Raffy, Zee, Alex, Colin, Champ, and Jack are playing to some extent.) The more mercenary part of me even wants to come up with some sort of coded system to categorize people -- Ally, Threat, Shield, Goat -- but then I start feeling guilty for thinking that way and so I abandon the idea. Plus, in a game this chaotic, things are ever-changing.

--

So, the question is . . . WHO is the weakest link? Nick - who has been largely absent with a few exceptions (like will there be another excuse after this sickness, or can we expect a change?) OR Tanner - who I've had to handhold until this round where--to be quite frank--he defied my expectations (was it a fluke, or will there be more good performances? Has he been playing dumb up to this point and suddenly going to be a sleeper. I don't even know what to make of this!) Do we remain Soca Strong (my original preference) or should we be mercenary and get rid of Mr. Invisible (who may or may not be sick, and will likely have some other excuse in the future)? Stay tuned!

Kolby

Tony

Geez, what a fuckin whirlwind! Not gonna lie, going to tribal twice feels shitty! But I still feel strongly that we can pull out a win!

Nick

I'll hopefully be feeling better in a few days. I voted for Tanner bc of spamming my individual chat and then responding with one word answers. But I'm probably out this round.

Tribal Council

Votes:

eman: Nick (Being absent for one round is unfortunate, being absent for two rounds is a coincidence, being absent for three rounds is a trend that I fear we can’t let last. I’m sorry to do this as I did want to work with you, and I really hope you feel better . . .)

Nick: Tanner (kept individually chatting me and it felt inauthentic)

Tanner: Nick (I love you but there is no game stepped up) 

Kolby: Nick

Tony: LOST VOTE