#im experiencing an emotion and im gonna write a bit and go to bed early

[pyrriax]

hi tumblr i love u guys <3

[howlingsaturn]

the wounds that keep on bleeding (2.2k)

i need a scene where tk comforts carlos and since im not sure the show will deliver, i decided to write one. trigger warning for mentions of domestic violence. i do not go into detail but please stay safe everyone. <3

 ao3 link if you wanna say hi.

darling, only you can ease my mind

help me leave these lonely thoughts behind

when they pull me under,

and I can feel my sanity start to unwind

darling, only you can ease my mind

— Ease My Mind, Ben Platt

Carlos normally prides himself on being a positive and optimistic guy. He's able to find hope and happiness even in the darkest of times and if his friends and family are struggling, he's always just around the corner, ready to offer company and encouraging words. It's not like it's a hardship for him, he's always looked out for other people, it's part of who he is.

But there are days, as rare as they might be, where Carlos doesn't know what's up or down, right or wrong. There are days where he too will drown in sadness or repressed anger, where the world is so dark, he fears he'll never find his way back to the light. The thing is, he's always dealt with these days on his own, he knows the protocol. But now there's someone else, someone who is so closely tied to his life and emotions that Carlos has no way of hiding himself away until the storm passes.

But he tries. He tries because the possibility that he'll sweep TK up in his hurricane of emotions without meaning to, that he'll pull him down right with him, is outright terrifying. And it's not that he thinks TK is weak and won't be able to handle it but because Carlos feels so strongly, so wholly, so all-consumingly. He knows of the weight that it carries, how much strength it costs, and it wouldn't be the first time someone ran away from him because of it. He didn't blame them and he wouldn't blame TK if he decided that it was too much but Carlos has become selfish where TK is concerned. Carlos knows, with shocking clarity, that a world without TK in his life is not one he wants to be a part of. 

It was only a matter of time before the hurricane hit. It's not like Carlos didn't expect things to go bad one day, he just didn't think it was going to be as terrible as it ended up being. They got the call halfway into his shift and it had shaken him up so badly, his body hadn't stopped trembling even after he had sat down on his desk hours later. His boss had taken one look at him and sent him home with 11 hours left of his shift. Carlos didn't even argue, simply packed his stuff, dragged his heavy feet outside to his car and drove himself home on autopilot.  

And so when Carlos arrives at his place in the early morning hours to find TK fast asleep on the left side of his bed, something in him crumbles; quiet and slow, like leaves falling from a tree. He stands there on the threshold, staring at TK's sleeping form like it's the only thing holding him together, and doesn't have the strength to take the last couple of steps to warmth and comfort. He feels his shoulders droop, his body growing heavy with exhaustion and he turns around, heading back into the darkness he came from. 

He sits down on the couch, his elbows resting on his thighs and his head pillowed on the palms of his hands, and wills his racing thoughts to calm. He feels his heart beat frantically in his chest as if it's trying to claw its way out and Carlos feels a coldness seep into his skin that he knows will linger even long after this day has ended. It's always like that and still, it doesn't make it easier. The pain in his heart continues to grow, leaving his chest a gaping wound, and Carlos feels himself slipping into a deep, dark hole. 

It's not until someone calls out to him, his name spoken in a hushed voice, that Carlos' mind stops drifting and returns to the here and now. He looks up with great difficulty, his head like stone on his neck and squints his eyes to see in the dark. TK's figure comes into view then, blurry at first but as he steps into the cone of light provided by the small lamp on the living room table, Carlos is granted a pair of beautiful green eyes and feels a little bit of sanity return to his frantic mind. 

"What are you doing up?" he asks, looking away quickly, and as his voice cracks slightly, he clears his throat. "You should go back to bed."

TK stands in front of him, his eyes a little foggy from sleep and frowns, reaching out a tentative hand to brush his fingers against Carlos' wrist. 

"No use with you being down here, is there?" he says and Carlos' throat closes up with emotions he can't grasp. He wants to reach out for TK and pull him close but he also wants to leave and hide himself away where no one would find him. 

"Are you okay?" TK asks, worry etched into his voice and Carlos tenses with a new wave of anxiety. 

"I'm fine," he blurts out far too quickly and judging by how TK's frown deepens, he knows he's been caught in his lie. "Go back to sleep, you've got a shift in a couple of hours." 

TK considers him for a few seconds but then he merely shrugs. "I don't sleep well without you anyway so I'd rather stay right here with you." 

Carlos doesn't respond, blindly staring at a grey spot on the floor and wondering if TK is going to let it go and go back to bad. As he watches TK shift from one foot to the other, he knows that's not going to happen. 

"Do you mind if I?" TK asks after a few minutes of silence, stepping right into Carlos' space and he's so close all of a sudden that Carlos can't help but look up. TK's gaze is indecipherable but he raises his hand in question, leaving Carlos to stare at him confusedly. He smiles a little then and if Carlos wasn't so out of his mind he would've sworn he saw his cheeks turn pink. TK puts his palm against Carlos' chest, pushing a little, and Carlos' body goes easily. TK plants himself on Carlos' lap then, winding an arm around Carlos' shoulder and as he presses close to get himself comfortable, something in Carlos' chest flutters. He closes his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath in and TK watches him silently as he calms himself. When Carlos opens his eyes again TK is still looking at him. 

"Hi," he says sweetly and reaches out a hand, letting his fingers dance across Carlos' face. 

"Hi," Carlos breathes back, eyes roaming across TK's face in both gratitude and shock. His arms have found their way around TK's back like they were meant to hold him, fingers restlessly tapping against the soft fabric of what Carlos knows to be one of his old hoodies. It's a little baggy across the shoulders and chest but TK doesn't seem to mind. They smell like you and they're comfortable, he had shrugged when Carlos had asked him about it and Carlos remembers the warm feeling that had settled in his gut upon seeing TK in his clothes for the first time. He really wishes he could have that feeling back but all he feels right now is emptiness. 

"Are you gonna tell me what's wrong?" TK asks and there it is again, that ugly feeling of dread. His fingers flex instinctively but if his grip on TK's hip is painful, TK doesn't let it show. Carlos' anxiety must show on his face though because TK's thumb over his brow stills, his whole face etched in worry. 

"Babe." 

Carlos has to squeeze his eyes shut again, willing down the panic that bubbles in his gut but as TK presses gentle kisses to his forehead and cheek, his hands carefully framing Carlos' face, the panic settles again. He needs to tell him, he thinks, he needs to get it out before he drowns in it. 

"There was an emergency," he croaks out before he can change his mind but pictures start flooding his head and his throat closes up again. His eyes shoot open in fright but TK is right there to soothe him.

"You're okay," he says, "You're with me. Nothing's gonna happen to you, I promise." 

And something about these words makes Carlos' mind stop spinning. He looks at TK then, really looks at him, as if he's seeing him for the very first time and all of the anger, all the hopelessness and sadness dissipate into resentment.

"It's not about what happens to me," he confesses, "It's about what happens to others when I'm not there to prevent it." 

TK's heart aches at the empty look he finds in Carlos' eyes and so he holds him a little tighter and kisses his head more fiercely. Carlos breathes him in and the hand that still rests on TK's hip flexes with anxiety. He wills his troubling thoughts away and instead allows himself to take comfort in TK's gentle touches. TK is infinitely patient with him and after a few more moments of silence, Carlos begins to explain. He tells TK about the emergency and the woman who called, fearing for her life. He describes how she looked when he arrived, how scared she was of Carlos getting too close and then he talks about the husband, blinded by rage, and how he tried to hurt Carlos too. He's quick to soothe a worried TK whose eyes have begun scanning him for injuries before Carlos could even finish his explanation. Carlos thinks about ending the story here, with the happy ending, but something in him urges him to continue, to talk about how this woman will probably never fully recover from what she experienced. TK says he can't know that; this woman is a survivor, she can overcome anything. And Carlos wants to agree, argue that yes, she is a survivor, but she'll spend the rest of her life questioning everything that led up to that day. Carlos knows, he's seen it up close, and TK squeezes the hand he's grabbed sometime during Carlos' explanation in a quick attempt to offer comfort.

"My sister is the strongest person I know," Carlos whispers, his voice wavering with emotion, "but she's never been the same since." 

TK nods in understanding, his own head a whirlwind of thoughts. He tries to find the right words knowing this is not something he can fix, that anyone can fix. 

"What happened to your sister is not your fault," TK argues and Carlos is already shaking his head in disagreement, "It's not! And what happened to that woman isn't either. Carlos, you saved her life today. That's a good thing." 

"Then why do I feel like my heart is split in two?" His voice breaks and Carlos knows that it'll take him a while to find it again. 

TK huffs out a shuddering breath and takes Carlos' face back into his hands, tilting his head up with gentle firmness. 

"Because you're a good person, Carlos, the best one I know, and you try to save as many people as you can because that's the kind of man that you are. But you're human. You can only do so much." 

Carlos looks at him and the pain TK finds in his eyes is palpable. It's a little shocking to him, how Carlos can hold himself together right now. There are tears in his eyes but not a single one falls and TK wonders if maybe this is what Carlos needs, to let go of all these emotions and just let himself be, no matter how violent and ugly it would turn out to be. But Carlos is still looking at him like he doesn't believe a word TK just said and TK simply can't let that stand. 

"How do you not realise how important and special you are?" 

Carlos shakes his head again but TK is quick to interfere. He leans forward, softly resting their foreheads together. 

"I need you to listen carefully to what I'm about to say, okay? You're a hero, Carlos, to so many people out there but especially to me." 

Carlos looks at him with wide eyes and TK swallows down the tears that threaten to fall. 

"You saved me," TK whispers, "So please let me save you too." 

As TK carefully reaches into Carlos' open wound, his aching heart now laid openly in the palms of TK's hands and Carlos' eyes a mirror to his own vulnerability, TK realises the depth of his feelings and finds himself unable to keep them to himself. 

"I love you," he breathes into the space between them and as he spreads balm on Carlos' wound, Carlos slowly starts to heal. His heart skips a beat in TK's gentle hands and then another, and another, until it finally returns to its old rhythm. Carlos reaches for TK then, pulling him down so their lips can meet and TK pours every bit of the love he feels into that kiss. As Carlos takes it all in, tugging TK close until there's no more space left, he realises that he's not alone and that what he does, who he is, is enough. At least for someone. And perhaps that is all he can ask for in times as dark and terrifying as these.

[crowsent]

👶,⭐,💘, and💻. Love you!!

thank you for ask anon! writer ask game is here if yall wanna send in something. still taking asks for these btw

👶- advice for new writers =

yall this is hella fucking generic but PRACTISE. theres a reason almost literally every writer on tumblr gives the advise of “practise practise practise” and that reason is it works. practise doesnt mean ‘oh just write bc youll automatically get better over time’ it means ‘write bc if you dont, you wont figure out what you need to improve.’ did yall know that i literally had no sentence variation in the past? i started every sentence with [character name] or [character pronoun] and i didnt realise until i was 15/16 and i only realised bc i started writing a lot.

i think there’s a fear of failure with new writers. there’s this lingering doubt of  “what if its not good?” and boy howdy i will answer that question right fucking now. it wont be good. when i compare my current work to my earlier work, my earlier work sucked fucking shit. i spelled soldier with a fucking ‘j’ and i had no idea what the hell a point of view was. and thats okay. whoever tells you that youre going to perfect writing is a fucking liar. there is no perfecting writing. 20 years from now, imma look at the writing from today and im gonna think it sucks shit. writing is a process. its a craft. you get better and better over time and the way you get better is by experimenting w different styles, different genres, different ways of writing.

and the only way you can experiment and improve is through practise. in video games, especially rpgs (which are my favourite kind of video games), you struggle in the early game. youre at a low level, you dont have good equipment, you have a hard time moving to the next area. but the only way you progress is by grinding, gaining levels, and getting stronger. same w writing. if youre a level 1 writer, just starting out, no idea what to do, just experiment. fuck around a bit. write crackships, write rarepairs, write niche self-indulgent reader/character fics. at the end of the day, you should write for yourself. its good and cool if other people like your stuff and validate all your hard work, but at the end of the day, the one who should enjoy your writing the most is yourself.

you WILL mess up and you WILL struggle, but thats the only way you can improve. i struggle with pacing the most. still do. but others might have pacing down pat and struggle instead with word choice or pov or something else. cant figure out where you need to improve if you dont write, so just practise and worry about all the fine print later

⭐️- how do you get your inspiration? =

this is definitely not universal, but i just sit on my bed, close my eyes, and meditate. cycle through all my emotions and thoughts and filter them out. then i just toss everything out the damn window. like. id just meditate for a while, focus on breathing, on experiencing the present, picture a field and a tree and myself and breathe. thoughts fly by and i let them happen but dont focus on it.

meditating gives me some semblance of emotional control bc i normally have none, and it gives me kind of this space. this safe space that only exists for me and me alone. so i use that space to let the world drift away. just me and my thoughts and sometimes, those thoughts end up being good writing ideas. but i usually meditate for a set amount of time. like 15 minutes or 30 minutes so i dont write until i finish meditating.

then when i get out of my headspace, i open up my laptop and see what i remember. thinking too hard about something causes it to muddy up. same with art. in digital art, artists flip the canvas to refresh their eyes, see if there’s anything weird or wonky about the illustration that they normally dont see bc theyve gotten used to it. flipping the canvas is like giving our eyes a jumpstart and lets us see what we could do better. in traditional art, its turning the canvas this way and that or repositioning yourself. meditating is like that. a break. a cleanse. a kind of pause where you dont think about anything and just try to process what you already have. you relax and kind of let yourself float down a river of thoughts and sometimes, a fish would jump out of that river and youd go “hey, thats a good idea. i should try that” so when you get out of the river, youre refreshed and ready to go.

same principle with showers. more ideas come to you in the shower when you dont have anything to write with bc youre not thinking about it. youre not focusing on finding inspiration or motivation so ideas naturally flow through you. you know that feeling when you want to do x then someone comes along and says “hey you should do x” and suddenly all motivation to do x leaves? same w your brain. focus too much on “i should be writing” or “i want inspiration” and its never gonna come. just let things happen. at least, thats how i do it. some people might get inspiration by reading or watching tv. everyones different so if thats not what works out for you, dont feel pressured to try my method

💘- what’s your favorite AU? Least favorite? =

magic au. specifically fantasy au set in like a pre-modern era. shows like avatar where theres all this magic and fantastical beasts and so on and so forth. semi-modern like six of crows and nevernight are great too. i want that magic to be woven into people’s lives. harry potter is okay but there’s like this separation between magic and muggle. there’s this feeling of “magic” but like as a tool. like a spoon or a gun or a shovel. i want magic au’s that are INTEGRATED with the world its set in.

like in atla, earth kingdom people have trains they move with bending while fire nation people have machines powered by heat and steam. both correspond to their bending and makes sense for the world they live in. but if your plot is like harry potter and its less worldbuilding and more action, then there’s this book series called seasons rising (read it. so good) where there’s a bunch of spells but the spells have character. the people using the spells GIVE it character and it feels much more intimate. pokemon does the whole fantasy mixed w reality better. give two trainers the exact same pokemon and by the time that pokemon reaches lvl 50, its gonna have a different moveset, different fight style, etc bc it was shaped by the world and people around it. i like harry potter but tbh it could have been so much better

for the least favourite au, it’s A/B/O i dont like the whole “omegas are only good for breeding hurr durr” and “alphas are violent and aggressive and cant control themselves around omegas” thing and it squicks me out. major squick. i read the original harry potter squick (THAT one. yeah. you know the one) and i still hate a/b/o more. i get why people like it, and there are one or two fics set in a/b/o au that i enjoy reading, but as a whole, i severely dislike a/b/o fics.

the themes are squick, the character dynamics get so messed up, and shipping dynamics (bc a/b/o fics usually have shipping) just get so blown out of proportion. there are so many a/b/o fics that turn ooc or the character interpretations radically change or something else. no hate against a/b/o fans bc yall are amazing for writing/drawing yalls au. there are things that you can only do in this setting and exploring those things can be incredibly fun for people, but for me personally, its not an au i like to visit.

💻- three works of yours that are must reads =

i. dont know what fandom youre in anon or your genre preferences. so ill just rec you one fic for a different fandom each with kind of different genres. ts masterlist is on my side @hufflepuff-deceit and regular fanfic masterlist is on my writing blog @crownonymous 

(BNHA) Viper. its my first serious attempt at fanfic in YEARS and its my baby. currently has 7 chapters, i havent updated it in a while bc im hyperfocused on ts rn, but i love it to bits. its just all of my fav bnha fics crammed into one fic. quirkless kind of villain izuku with stain as a mentor as they work together to bring light to the injustices of hero society and where bakugos bullying has visible and long-lasting repercussions? sign me the fuck up. you can read it on ao3 HERE bc its not on tumblr. kind of fast-paced, has a lot more action scenes than anything else ive written. heavy plot-wise but has a lot of humour and comedy to break things up

(Kimetsu no Yaiba) I Pray To God He Hears You. not related to my other kny fic oleander which is a multichap retelling au. iptghhy is a standalone one-shot and kind of a character study on one giyuu tomioka. i love him so much. giyuu is my baby and i adore him. so of course i wrote a sad fic focusing on him. well technically, the fic focuses on giyuu AND his relationships.  SPOILERS for chapters 130 and 131 of the manga. focuses mostly on giyuu and sabito, but there’s a fair bit of giyuu and tanjiro and urokodaki.  you can read it HERE bc this is also not on tumblr. also deals with heavy things but more emotion-wise since it doesnt have that much of a plot. loss. grief. moving on. survivors guilt. that kind of stuff.  very sad. hurt but with comfort, especially at the end.

(Sanders Sides) Logan’s Birthday Fic: Logicality. just what the title says. i wrote 5 different fics and published them all on logans bday but the logicality one received the most feedback and honestly? the cutest of the bunch. its gonna be crossposted onto ao3 but for now, you can read it HERE on my ts sideblog. theres no plot since its literally just domestic and relationship fluff. and puns. patton is in the fic, theres gonna be puns. nothing but good things and warm feelings bc logan deserves it.

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thank you so much for such interesting asks anon! i enjoyed answering these. have a lovely day!