#sdfg

[b1ngl3zz]

how we feel about this little guy

tWIRlrs my HAIR

hii riley PLEASE EKISS ME PLEASE PLEASE I KNOW BALL !!!!! I KNOW FOOTBALL !!!,

one chance

[lesbianbillygibson]

My little guys i got today

[pontevoix]

high-winds catch debris & prove that things can get stuck in a cycle. that it is possible for a person to stand at the middle of things & watch omens twist around them like a rope. it is possible to stand in a hurricane, to watch the radar & feel it as everything inevitable. it is the promise of panic, & somewhere it makes it difficult to discern self from storm.

it’s a dramatic thing, to be teenage. it is catastrophe piled up on top of itself at the end of high-speed chase. 

floch felt it like the beginning of the world ( or the end ) every time that eren laughed – breathless & barking. 

eren laughed when the two of them entertained young-blood thrills together: smokes on the fire-escape, driving too fast on a lonely road, standing on top of the world with middle-fingers raised. 

eren laughed when he painted something terrifying enough that it made floch’s heartbeat fucking stutter to a stop. it boiled him hot too, so he sank to his knees. 

as far as he can tell, eren has always painted – but it’s only recently that his art twangs with something familiar. floch can’t recognize it, but it feels like a hurricane. 

eren laughed every time he marveled how he was snagged on the thrill of first love. it was a rush, because eren liked to slide his hand into floch’s back pocket to keep him close. it felt a bit like dangling off the side of something up-high, but it was sweet too -  the way that eren loved him enough to press kisses against his jaw & pretend that he was counting freckles. 

in turn, floch tangled their fingers when he could & soothed himself by listening to the thrum of eren’s life. 

it’s a dramatic thing, to be teenage. but it wasn’t a crime to love like the world is on fire.

floch had always been boyish & boisterous & prone to speaking too loud. eren had liked it about him, liked that floch sometimes laughed at the wrong things, that he snorted when he laughed. 

eren was a rush, & he loved so fiercely that it meant that floch could trust him to like him honestly & like him well. 

consequently, floch always found it difficult to refuse eren or to figure out their trajectory.   

at that time ( almost a year, now ) : floch had agreed so easy through a text he typed with one thumb:  ‘ meet you there x. ‘  

they’d been teetering towards on again, off again, & the need for final answers. 

eren proposed a tempting for an escape, a new life. they would meet at the 7-11 where they always try to buy smokes & instead end up buying root beers – & then they would try for a new start. 

floch’s got a car that he’s still making payments for, but they could drive anywhere & be dramatic.

to his credit, floch did start to pack. he shoved toiletries into a duffle & odds & ends because impulse did not mean strategy. floch held a pen between his teeth & periodically remembered to make an itemized list.

there were four pairs of jeans, seven pairs of socks, his camera that doesn’t have a case or a lens cap, a first aid kid — 

as he packs, a cd plays the red hot chili peppers, or whatever floch had been listening to last. 

the television cracks with the news too, because floch likes it better that way. 

the drone of ongoing things soothes him often. he plays the news when he sleeps, usually.

eren makes fun of him for it but likes him anyway.

floch slips one of eren’s sketchbooks into his backpack, too, & he thinks that maybe he recognizes one of the voices on television – it’s an unconscious recognition that makes him look up towards the television.

a banner at the bottom of the screen names the speaker as erwin smith, a lawyer active in something or another.

high-winds catch debris & prove that things can get stuck in a cycle. that it is possible for a person to stand at the middle of things & watch omens twist around him like a rope.

floch blinks & feels himself in another life holding a blade to the neck of a man that should be dead. erwin smith, the commander, the devil. floch spares his life 

floch blinks, & he’s still holding eren’s sketchbook. he feels himself watching eren as a god. 

floch blinks again & loses time.

eren spends too much time standing outside 7-11, & floch never apologizes.they’d been teetering towards on again, off again, & the need for final answers. 

they’re off. forever, they’re off. 

he has a difficult time responding to eren’s text messages in the aftermath – but then again, he has a difficult time responding to most things. 

eren texts him on an impulse one night, late at night : i hate you. 

he might have been drunk, but floch doesn’t respond to that message either. 

he thinks that eren was likely telling the truth. eren loves intensely because he feels intensely. so love & hate do not become mutually exclusive. they’re just added debris. 

but it does make floch scoff a little more — there’s been too much cynicism accumulating in his veins, & it’s been making him feel cruel. maybe he’s just upset. it’s a dramatic thing, to be teenage. it’s dramatic, too, to step outside of teenage years.

because eren is still a rush – but now floch remembers enough to remember end game. 

eren then had used him as much as he had loved him, & he only loved him because he needed to be loved.

it had been an agreement that the two of them shook hands on. 

so floch doesn’t blame him for warfare; he had been complicit, too. but he knows enough now to understand — eren loves so hard that he is able to convince himself that things would be forever. 

he is the center for gravity. there is more to come for him.

they split ways anyway, hover in different circles. floch never forgets that eren exists, & eren doesn’t remember –

they split ways anyway, & it’s not intentional when floch finds him again, working in a cafe that is too new to be densely populated; a ‘now open!’ sign still hangs from the front door – 

they stare at each other, & floch masks himself fast – saying stupid shit like, ‘ if this is the coronation, i ain't feeling the love. ‘ 

eren shuts down fast, grips a sharpie too hard as he refuses to write down floch’s name on a paper cup. 

there’s not a lot of room for regrets, when you are a hurricane — so floch stares at him hard & can’t decide if he wants the worst for eren, or the best.

he’s like eren, mostly. he feels things too intensely, too. they had always been a little unrestrained together. 

so floch tips well because he thinks that doing so might make eren jump over the counter & throttle him –

& that’s that. the pair of them behave. 

but maybe they only behaved out of respect for coincidence. because they did not intend to see one another, they could pretend that it didn’t matter.

floch apparently loses patience for coincidence, though. he’s still boyish & boisterous & prone to speaking too loud — 

so he shows up to the cafe again. like an asshole, he keeps his sunglasses on even indoors. 

he doesn’t like for people who know him to look at his eyes too closely. 

eren stares at him hard & writes something ugly on a cup before floch gets the chance to speak. ‘ i don’t hate you anymore, ‘ he tells floch.

from @st4rsinclined : i don't hate you anymore, eren & floch

floch doesn’t believe him, really, so he shrugs. 

‘ you’ll hate me as long as you’ll love me, & you’ll love me as long as you hate me. that’s life. get over it. ‘ 

it’s a dramatic thing, to be teenage. but it might be a crime — to love like the world is on fire.

in the meantime, floch taps his credit card against his thigh to disguise his nerves & tells himself that he’s here to return eren’s sketchbook.

maybe he’s here to rekindle war. 

it’s hard to tell.

[lesbianbillygibson]

Smashing a bunch of fruit to ensure we all die of scurvy

[pontevoix]

sorry every time u make a poll i just want to click on the one u say is just for u sdfiuhgsdgf

[pontevoix]

[pontevoix]

𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐧𝐞: new years edition : eren & armin from @st4rsinclined

who insists on cleaning the house for “a fresh start”?

armin tries to clean ritually, though it’s rarely his priority to maintain a pristine living environment. mess comes easily to him & habitually – he usually forgets where he last saw his computer charger, & he leaves traces of himself ( open books & sweatshirts & used coffee mugs ) scattered from table to kitchen counter to bed to middle of the hall way. there tends to be a method to his mess, though, & he’s always a little bit neat in comparison to eren.

eren’s mess matches armin’s & then builds on it tenfold on the days he’s distracted by either hard memories or bursts of productivity. he leaves wet laundry draped over the couch & old food on the counter & drying paint on the floor. the mess comes to eren as though it were a daze, & when he realizes that he has left a tornado’s destruction in his wake – he cleans quickly, as though he could erase the mess from armin’s memory.

it’s nice, mostly. unless it’s on the days where armin starts to lean closer to a type of overwhelmed, where it becomes increasingly difficult for him to let go of details. he struggles with the prospect of control & that new years promise an unknown –.

so armin insists on cleaning the house. but he never calls it a fresh start. he calls it preparation. he calls it superstition & the need for starting things off well. 

who sneaks away to watch the stars and reflect on the past year?

eren loses himself sometimes. he’s a timeless creature, so he’s not that attached to the idea of the new year or the old year. he bores easily at the countdown, but likes the company & camaraderie of a kiss at midnight – he’s ritualistic like that way, sometimes, holding onto  holidays for the sake of celebration & noise, sometimes.  

even so, he is a timeless creature. there’s not much separation between one year & the next, & sometimes eren gets overwhelmed with the things that have happened & haven’t yet happened. he remembers too much & pretends that he he hasn’t remembered much — 

on the moments, eren sneaks away to watch the stars & reflect on the past year. but armin joins him, & their shoulders brush. they don’t talk about it, though.

they don’t like to talk about these things.

who struggles to stay awake and falls asleep before the countdown? 

eren sleeps erratically & habitually winds up going to bed at later hours than armin on most days – still, he likes to sit with armin in bed so that they have the semblance of going to bed at the same time. it causes for chaotic mornings because eren’s shift starts earlier than armin’s, even while armin wakes first anyway to answer a list of to-dos that he chanted in his dreams. 

in truth, armin sleeps erratically too. he will go weeks where his sleep schedule passes as normal & healthy — but he gives himself away in how lightly he sleeps. if he wakes up at three in the morning, he abandons the idea of sleeping more – even if he is not entirely coherent. it takes him hours to wake up, & he tends to grump a little more when he first wakes. 

he gives himself away, too, when he sleeps seldom & chases his list of to-dos while eren caves & pretends to sleep. 

dependent on the year, armin may struggle to stay awake for the new year & fall asleep before the count down. it depends on where his sleep schedule falls at that time.

who always wants to watch the fireworks, even in freezing weather?

in truth, neither of them care much for fireworks – they wish they cared more for fireworks. but armin can list a million negative impacts of fireworks on local wildlife & the community, so he finds less joy in their presence than he used to. to prove his point,  eren sometimes tenses at the sounds of fireworks. it feels like an old memory stenciled into his body’s reflexes to hear the pop pop pop. & still – he still likes the idea of celebration & noise & company. so eren always wants to watch the fireworks. they usually regret it anyway.

who writes a detailed list of resolutions?

on the days where armin starts to lean closer to a type of overwhelmed, where it becomes increasingly difficult for him to let go of details. he struggles with the prospect of control & that new years promise an unknown – as a part of this, he starts 

who's claims not to care about New Year traditions but secretly hopes they work?  

armin’s habits regarding the new year are formed around a deep sense of productivity & efficiency. although he himself is spiritual & borders on religiosity, the new year is secular to him. he performs new year traditions to ready himself for ongoing demands, but he doesn’t believe in them.

by comparison, even if eren doesn’t care too deeply for the concept of the new year . . . but he likes the culture around rituals sometimes. more than that, he’s prone to wanting deeply for good things & hope & luck. he doesn’t care about new year traditions, but he cares deeply if they don’t seem to work. 

for this reason, eren secretly hopes they work.

who insists on always spending New Year's together and kissing at midnight? 

they’re a lil co-dependent & kinda parasitic sdfg not being together was not an option lmaoooo

who wants to start New Year's Day 'the right way' (early, nice breakfast, etc)? 

armin verges on superstitious when it comes to the new year, & it is exacerbated sometimes by a habit for forcing likeability. he’s sweet & golden & cheerful sometimes in a way that promises charm, & he tries to enforce this in how they start a good year. so he always tells eren that he’s going to wake him up early on january 1st so that they can treasure the day – 

it’s an obnoxious thing to say, & eren tells him so without meaning any criticism. eren is a timeless creature, but he is quick to concede to rituals & attempts at fresh starts. he is quick to concede to armin’s habits & whims, too — because there’s no reason not to, when the cost is so low. besides, he planned on waking up early too . . . because he doesn’t want to jinx the new year, either.

they’re both prone sometimes to imagine the end of the world. & they’re habitually terrified to enact anything that hastens its coming.

so they both want to start the day the right way. & they both cook breakfast to share in bed.

who starts a hobby on january 1st and sticks with it all year? 

to his credit, armin manages to try a new hobby or wellness practice for three months of the new year. it’s things like meditating or watering a plant (not a hobby, but a goal) or try to paint when eren is painting ( that one lasted more than three months, in fairness. it had been a more peaceful activity than either of them expected because it was something shared. still sometimes, when eren is painting something inspired by old memories, armin sometimes feels as though he’s intruding when he shares the space  ). 

after three months, armin is prone to bursts of types of paranoia or anxiety that there are details that he has missed. he starts to fracture, starts to pull himself a little too thin. his voice turns a little higher, which he hates, & he feels less like a person – & more like a referee.

eren watches the process & hates it. 

who suggests writing a letter to their future selves to open next New Year’s?

eren’s therapist recommends writing a letter to their future selves to open next new year’s. they laughed at the idea over champagne & claimed it was stupid. however, they ended up doing it ( & wondering if the exercise would be just as effective if they wrote the letter on their phones ). the practice is not entirely effective though, as they forget that they had drunkenly written letters by the time the next new year’s comes around. 

by then, eren has a different therapist, anyway. 

[pontevoix]

he wants to say no. jean asks if he can be his sanctuary tonight, & armin wants to refuse so badly that he thinks he can taste bile on the back of his tongue. the want for refusal is enough to drip acid down his throat, & he recognizes the consequent nausea as guilt.

from @theirs1n : please, can’t you be my sanctuary tonight? jean and armin.

it’s a familiar enough feeling that he’s learned that he can soothe himself by tracing the pad of his finger over the carvings of his desk’s edges or searching for cobwebs in ceiling corners, by adjusting his stance & containing himself a little better.

it’s awful, he thinks, that he should be feel so adamant about the want for refusal – because he still also wants to want to be helpful so badly that he can taste bile on the back of his tongue. anxious anticipation piles nausea on top of nausea. even so, he opens the door for jean when he knock – admits him into his rented room. he was never going to refuse.

it’s a cyclical type of non-reasoning: he’s guilty because he wants to deny help. he wants to deny help because he’s guilty, because he wants to be guilty, because jean is a comfortable type of familiarity that armin isn’t sure that he’s able to refuse.

it’s starting to get harder to be comfortable with familiarity  – since the day the world had ended, there had been a necessary adrenaline in the way that survivors promised themselves to an uphill hike through mud. passing years make the hill plateau, though it makes the mud no less thick.

armin thinks he may be terrified to consider what should happen if the mud should disappear, if he starts walking without resistance. so familiarity turns into a threat & feels too much like stagnancy & feels too much he might drown. it feels too much like everyone else is drowning, too.

so no one else has been in his living space. he’s been habitual about arranging meetings in public spaces, office spaces, he’s had enough of hotel rooms, of inn-keeps, of hosts, of families pretending that stylize rented rooms were meant to have a likeness to home —- it feels too much like playing pretend.

to entertain visitors & their familiarity feels too much like play-pretend exposed, like raw wires too ready to touch water.

but jean is here now, & he is familiar. armin thinks he may be drowning, & jean asks if he can be his sanctuary tonight, & armin toes at floorboards with the tip of his still-socked feet. he really thinks jean may be drowning.

it makes him acutely aware, for a second, that they are small together. jean stands in private quarters & stinks slightly of alcohol though his expression settles somber, sober, & melancholy. armin stands with his arms folded across his chest unbound while anxiety twists at his lips & joins acid at the back of his throat.

they are not titanic. they are mortal, & they are not titanic.

the hotel is older – equipped with gas lamps rather than electric & bouncing gold off jean’s skin. it’s enough, somehow, that armin notices ( for the first time ) an etching of lines at the corner of jean’s eyes, not quite crows’ feet  & not quite youth.

they are not yet old, but they are the ghosts of child soldiers. it’s uncertain how they will age.

jean asks if he can be his sanctuary tonight. floorboards creak beneath his feet, still cold despite fabric — & armin comes close enough that they are two men, too close, too familiar.

it’s starting to get harder to be comfortable with familiarity, & armin has always been terrible at refusing it regardless. his success has always been built on a foundation of inadequate masks, & it has always been built on the back of every experience that has been shared.

of course, armin’s not entirely sure jean has could be anything but familiarity; jean isn’t built for loneliness. though, in fairness, armin isn’t either.

& armin comes close enough that they are two men, too close. he pads his thumbs across the corners of his eyes, sketching out the lines of age that the sun has kissed there. he touches skin & knows his own honesty & steps back like an apology.

‘ you’re always welcome, of course - ‘ & armin means it so badly that he thinks he can taste bile on the back of his tongue. he’s worried about drowning. he supposes that he’s worried about living too.